Abstract:

This study focuses on sustainable consumption and tests the effect of social value orientations on sustainable consumption. The results indicate that pro-social individuals prefer sustainable consumption than pro-self individuals, and in-group identification mediates the effect of social value orientation on ecological consumption. Interestingly, Pro-self individuals’ behaviors have changed dramatically by the influence of face consciousness. In other words, the pro-self individuals with high-face-consciousness show greater willingness in sustainable consumption than those pro-self individuals with low-face-consciousness, but the effect was not significant for pro-social individuals. What’s more, this paper investigates how face consciousness plays the moderated effect specifically. It suggests that this research model is a mediated moderator model, which means moderator face consciousness’s effect partly passes through mediator in-group identification, and its residual effect passes through the main effect. Finally, we discuss the existing research on Chinese Face construct, explain the challenging problems in terms of theoretical attribution and methodological attribution. This research has not only further enriched the theory of Chinese consumer behavior, but also has good practical significance to promote the ecological products in China market.

Key words: Social Value Orientation, Face Consciousness, In-group Identification, Sustainable Consumption