Rajesh et al. (2001) believe that advertising appeal is a strategic way to display prominent features of products. Turley and Kelley (1997) classified advertising appeal into two types: rational appeal and emotional appeal. Rational appeal is straightforward, directly emphasizing the performance, quality and price of products; Nevertheless, emotional appeal is based on the emotional needs of consumers. Compared with rational appeal, emotional appeal has more strong emotional elements, which can stimulate consumers' purchase desire and generate psychological identification. Chan (1996) and other scholars argued that compared with emotional appeals, rational appeals advertisements lack vividness and the content is boring, which is difficult to capture people's interest. Therefore, consumers are more likely to be attracted by emotional appeal advertisements of green product and give more optimistic comments on them. Emotional appeal advertisements can effectively grasp the real emotional needs of consumers through adding emotional attributes to products and catering to individual preferences to increase their recognition of products, and thus promote consumers voluntarily purchase relevant products. Based on the positive effect of emotional appeal advertisements, this study focuses on emotional appeal to explore its effect on consumers' green purchase behaviors.
Scholars often use the emotion dichotomy, which divides emotion into negative and positive dimensions according to the experience structure (Watson D, 1985; Watson D et al., 1999). Wang (2015) adopted qualitative research approach and sorted out the raw materials of the in-depth interviews. He found environmental emotion has dual factors (both positive and negative) and six dimensions, in which positive environmental emotions including the feeling of loving the environment, admiring and being proud of the green behavior. In the category of the feeling of loving the environment contained initial concept related to cherishing and yearning etc. Positive emotions are a series of positive feelings, including enthusiasm, gratitude, excitement, happiness, pride, etc. (Qiu, 2008). Meneses (2010) et al. conducted a special study on emotion, and the results showed that positive emotion could increase consumers' intrinsic motivation to purchase products, and the driving effect of positive emotional factors is significantly greater than negative emotional factors. According to the research results of scholars, the influence of different emotions on consumers' purchase behavior is quite different. Therefore, this paper studies two specific dimensions (emotions towards a better environment and towards the appropriate individual environmental behavior) and four positive emotional appeals as the starting point. The former includes the cherishing and yearning appeal, which respectively represent the appreciation of the present beautiful environment and the expectation of the future beautiful environment. The latter includes the proud and admiring appeal, which respectively represent the pride in one's own appropriate environmental behavior and the appreciation of others’ appropriate environmental behaviors.
Fredrickson (1998) proposed broaden-and-build model of positive emotion theory and demonstrated the specific functions of positive emotion. It points out that emotion is closely related to corresponding behaviors, and defines such behaviors generated by emotions as specific behavioral tendencies, including avoidance and proximity. In addition, positive emotions have a positive effect on an individual's thoughts and actions. Based on this theory, it is not only consumers' positive emotion which has an expansive influence on their thinking and specific behavioral tendency --green purchase behavior, but also has a positive and long-term impact on their future cognition and behavior. Furthermore, Mehrabian and Russell (1974) proposed the theory of " Stimulus - Organic - Response " (SOR theory for short). In theory, stimulus was regarded as a kind of external influence, through a series of psychological response process, eventually, individuals would produce a kind of inner or outer behavioral responses. The intrinsic reaction is often characterized by the recipient's attitude or intention, and the external behavioral response is featured as close to or avoidance behavior. Based on above theory, four positive emotional appeals videos were designed to stimulate consumers, changing their psychological state, and thus having an impact on the external behavioral response of individual green purchases.
2.1 Direct effects
Fredrickson (1998) proposed the broaden-and-build model of positive emotion theory, which believes that positive emotion can affect individual's psychological state, triggering individual’s pleasure and then changing his thought. Under the influence of positive emotions, individual’s brain will issue more positive instructions, and the cognitive level will be accordingly improved, thus remarkably enhancing the possibility of the corresponding behavioral tendency. Stimulated by positive emotional appeals, therefore, the brains will naturally make more positive reactions. Moreover, people tend to believe their green purchase behavior helps to alleviate environmental pollution and reduce the social pressure. They tend to regard themselves as environmentally responsible, being more inclined to contribute to the improvement of the ecological environment. In other words, in a positive emotional state, consumers’ perceived green value and perceived green responsibility become more active. Besides, under different positive emotional appeals, consumers make different responses. The sense of cherishing is a positive emotion towards the present beautiful environment, while the sense of yearning is a positive emotion towards the future better environment. It is common sense that yearning appeals bring more expectations and motivation than cherishing, resulting in a stronger perceived green value and perceived green responsibility. Proud is a positive feeling towards one's own appropriate environmental behavior, and admiring is a feeling of appreciation for the other’s appropriate environmental behavior. Although both proud and admiring appeal bring positive psychological experience to consumers. It is admitted that other’s proper behavior no doubt set a good example effect for individuals, so we suggest that admiring appeal generate stronger perceived green value and perceived green responsibility than proud appeal. Hence, we propose the following:
H1: Different types of positive emotional appeals have different positive effects on consumers' perceived green value.
H1a: Compared with the cherishing appeal, yearning appeal has more positive effects on the consumers' perceived green value.
H1b: Compared with the proud appeal, admiring appeal has more positive effects on the consumers' perceived green value.
H2: Different types of positive emotional appeals have different positive effects on consumers' perceived green responsibility.
H2a: Compared with the cherishing appeal, yearning appeal has more positive effects on the consumers' perceived green responsibility.
H2b: Compared with the proud appeal, admiring appeal has more positive effects on the consumers' perceived green responsibility.
Liu (2015) believed positive emotions have the role in expanding people's thoughts and actions, having a relatively lasting influence on individuals. The expansion role is positively correlated with the intensity of positive emotions, that is, the stronger the positive emotions are, the corresponding greater expansion role on the individual’s thought and actions. Moreover, scholars found that there is a significantly positive correlation between ecological consumption emotion and ecological consumption behavior through empirical studies. Individuals’ ecological consumption behavior tendency is increasing with the emotions for ecological environment and social resources (Lau and Chan, 2000). In addition, the SOR model demonstrates the external stimuli acting on the organic body will produce corresponding responses, and then affect the individual to make relevant behavioral decisions. Therefore, under the stimulation of positive emotions, individuals' thinking is remarkably strengthened, and they are more inclined to explore new things and pursue more proper behavior, eventually promoting their practice of green purchase behavior.
Different types of positive emotional appeals have different effects on consumers' green purchase behavior. As far as the positive emotions for the environment are concerned, the cherishing appeal motivates individuals to adopt green purchase behaviors to maintain the beautiful environment they currently have. In contrast, the yearning appeal is an individual's expectation and desire for a better environment in the future. The imagined brilliant environment is a more powerful incentive for individuals to make continuous efforts and pursuit. As a result, people spare no effort to accomplish the established goal, and their willingness to practice green purchase behavior naturally becomes stronger. As far as the positive emotions for the individual's environmentally appropriate behavior are concerned, compared with self-recognition or self-satisfaction, recognition and appreciation from others are more effective in motivating individuals to practice proper behaviors. Furthermore, people often voluntarily learn from people or behaviors they admire sincerely. Compared with the recognition of their own environmental protection behaviors, the individual's appreciation of others' contribution to the improvement of the environment has more stimulus for them to follow their example and practice the same green purchase behavior. Hence, we propose the following:
H3: Different types of positive emotional appeals have different positive effects on consumers' green purchase behavior.
H3a: Compared with the cherishing appeal, yearning appeal has more positive effects on the consumers' green purchase behavior.
H3b: Compared with the proud appeal, admiring appeal has more positive effects on the consumers' green purchase behavior.
2.2 Mediating effects
According to SOR theory, individuals naturally produce specific emotions and mental states under the positive emotional stimulation, eventually making corresponding behavioral responses. Therefore, when emotional appeal is stimulated, consumers' perceived green value and perceived green responsibility tend to increase and give impetus to green purchase behavior.
Perceived green value refers to individual's subjective evaluation for the effectiveness of green products or green consumption. Liu et al. (2020) found that perceived green value plays an intermediary role between the target framework and green consumption intention. Scholars pointed out that consumers' perceived green value is significantly correlated with individuals' ecological attitudes and green consumption behaviors (Berger et al., 1992). For example, consumers believe that their green purchase behavior have a positive effect on the improvement of the ecological environment, which represents the perceived green value is strong. At that time, consumers attempt to practice more green purchase behaviors conducive to environmental protection, which plays a further strengthening role on the perceived green value. Besides, Hines (1987) argued that the level of consumers' perceived green value would affect the degree to which they adopted pro-environmental behaviors. In addition, the results of Maloney et al. (2014) indicated that consumers' perceived value was positively correlated with green purchase behavior. Hence, we propose the following:
H4: The relationship between positive emotional appeals and green purchase behavior is significantly mediated by consumers’ perceived green value.
Lao (2013) defined green consumption as a responsible and sustainable consumption behavior that individuals make efforts to protect the natural environment so as to minimize the negative impact on the environment in the consumption process. As a crucial internal driving factor, environmental responsibility somehow determines the way people purchase behave. In face of green products, for example, consumers with a higher sense of environmental responsibility tend to have a higher purchase intention and be more actively in implementing green purchasing behaviors. Hines et al. (1987) proposed responsible environmental behavior model, which demonstrates a strong correlation between the individual's sense of responsibility and the environmental behavior. Compared with the individuals without the sense of environmental responsibility, the individuals with the sense of environmental responsibility usually showed more environmentally responsible behaviors, because it indirectly affected the individual's environmental behavior. Responsibility not only affects consumers' green purchase behavior, but also mediates the relationship between consumers' psychological factors and purchase behavior. Wang and Zheng(2011), in the process of exploring the path of psychological awareness factors to consumers' ecological civilization behavior, found that sense of responsibility can be used as an mediating variable between psychological factors and ecological civilization behavior. The result showed that resource and environment emotions influence consumers' sense of green responsibility, thus affecting individuals' ecological civilization behavior. Hence, we propose the following:
H5: The relationship between positive emotional appeals and green purchase behavior is significantly mediated by consumers’ perceived green responsibility.
2.3 Moderating effects
Arousal degree is the individual's perception of their own activation degree, which describes the activation degree of the individual's emotional state. It is a continuous change process, and it refers to the individual's state of excitement from lethargy. The awakening of the individual state is a great preparation for the subsequent behavior. Some scholars found that emotional arousal can significantly moderate individuals' internal perception state (Stefanucci et al., 2009). Based on experimental research, Tang et al. (2019) found that emotional titer had an impact on individual behaviors, and the effect was greater under higher arousal. Wang (2007) pointed out different degrees of arousal moderate the effect of emotion on memory. The influence of individual emotion on green purchase behavior is different under different degrees of arousal. Furthermore, Lewis et al. (2007) believed that there is a high correlation between emotional titer and emotional arousal, and individual thinking activity varies according to the degree of stimulus generated by emotional vocabulary. When awakened by the positive emotional appeal video, the corresponding positive emotional arousal degree is higher, so the individuals’ environmental responsibility will be more intense. Individuals initiatively create more value for the ecological environment, accordingly, be more actively involved in green purchase. Hence, we propose the following:
H6a: Emotional arousal moderates the influence of positive emotional appeals on perceived green value.
H6b: Emotional arousal moderates the influence of positive emotional appeals on perceived green responsibility.
H6c: Emotional arousal moderates the influence of positive emotional appeals on green purchase behavior.
Consumers' psychological factors and situational factors exerts a great impact on the green purchase behavior. Among multiple situational factors, individual values occupy an important position. Thøgersen et al. (2002), for example, found that values are the distal determinants of behavior, and they need to function through adjacent variables, such as perceived behavioral effectiveness. It is common sense that China has a long history of traditional culture. Values such as Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism have a subtle influence on individuals' behaviors, shaping their unique ways of thinking and decision-making. Confucianism, the most representative of values in China, has the most profound and extensive influence (Pan et al., 2009). The middle doctrine is the core of Confucianism, embodying all Confucian values and virtues. It is not only a principle of dealing with affairs (Zhang and Jin, 1999), but also a dialectical way of thinking that rejects extreme and advocates timely adaptation (Yang, 2009). The middle doctrine is an important manifestation of Chinese traditional cultural values and a crucial component of our national social psychology (Du, 2014), which make a far-reaching consequence on individual cognition and behavior. Gong et al. (2019) hold the opinion that consumers are deeply influenced by Chinese specific cultural background, verifying that the middle doctrine observably moderates the relationship between flow experience and impulse consumption. Therefore, stimulated by positive emotions, the individuals who have a higher level of middle doctrine are likely to pay more attention to the harmony between man and nature, and viewing problems as a whole so as to pursue the balance of personal interests and social interests. It is those people who are willing to undertake the social obligations. Furthermore, they even think their green behavior helps notably enhance the natural environment, thus being more active in practicing green purchase behavior. Hence, we propose the following:
H7a: The middle doctrine moderates the influence of positive emotional appeals on perceived green value.
H7b: The middle doctrine moderates the influence of positive emotional appeals on perceived green responsibility.
H7c: The middle doctrine moderates the influence of positive emotional appeals on green purchase behavior.
Based on the broaden-and-build model of positive emotion theory, consumer behavior model and emotional arousal theory, this study deeply explores the relationship and mechanism between the positive emotional appeals and green purchase behavior, focusing on comparing differences in stimuli effects of different types of positive emotions, at the same time investigating the moderating role of emotional arousal and middle doctrine.
The conceptual model of this study is shown in Figure 1 in which the solid line represents the influence effect and the dotted line represents the moderating effect. Positive emotional appeal is the explanatory variable, perceived green value and perceived green responsibility are mediating variables, emotional arousal and middle doctrine are moderating variables, and green purchase behavior is outcome variable.