International Journal of Business and Social Science Vol. 7, No.

7; July 2016

Why Green Consumption Behavior is “easier said than done”1? - Evidence from
China Market

Ning Yang
Postgraduate of Marketing
Business School, Sun Yat-sen University
Guangzhou 510275, China.
Zhuomin Shi
Professor of Marketing
Business School, Sun Yat-sen University
Guangzhou 510275, China.
Zaoying Kuang
Postgraduate of Marketing
Business School, Sun Yat-sen University
Guangzhou 510275, China.

Abstract
The existing research has shown that green consumption attitude is a good predictor of the green consumption
behavior, while in the meantime some study has pointed out that there is no significant relationship between the
green consumption attitude and behavior. In reality, many consumers think green consumption behavior is "easier
said than done". Aiming to reveal the relationship between green consumption attitude and behavior, this study
probed the process of attitude-behavior transformation from two dimensions, perceived control, and perceived
difficulty. We distributed 200 questionnaires and reclaimed 189 valid questionnaires. Through SPSS and LISREL
data analysis, the result showed that perceived control and perceived difficulty moderated this green consumption
attitude-behavior process. Both low perceived control (vs. high perceived control) and high perceived difficulty
(vs. low perceived difficulty) will weaken the connection between green consumption attitude and green
consumption behavior. This paper offers inspiration to both Chinese government and enterprises to raise Chinese
consumers’ perceived control as well as lowering their perceived difficulty of green consumption.
Keywords: Green consumption attitude, Green consumption behavior, Perceived control, Perceived difficulty
1. Introduction
In China, a great number of cities are suffering from heavy fog and haze made by increasing PM2. 5. In addition,
China’s incidents of product damage vary from exceeding hazardous substances (melamine, plastics, etc.) food, to
household appliances and building materials containing the radiation and chemical composition (formaldehyde,
etc.).These events have greatly affected Chinese people's daily health. Based on the severity, Chinese government
vigorously advocates environmentally friendly and sustainable consumption, which provides a good opportunity
to promote green consumption. Early definition of green consumption traces back to responsible consumption,
which is defined that consumers should reduce purchasing that will lead to resources shortage, and buy products
with less ecological harm (Fisk 1973). Peattie and Ring (1993)proposed, when consumers are making a
purchasing decision, green consumption refers to more sustainable and responsible consumption to some extent
according to environmental and social standards.

1
Acknowledgement: The study is supported by the National Science Foundation of China (71572205) and the 2016 Training
Program of the Major Research Plan of the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, Sun Yat-Sen
University.
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Some scholars think green purchase behavior is environmentally conscious behavior (Chan 2001;Kim and Choi
2005; Mostafa 2007), with the minimal environmental impact (Mainieri, Barnett, Valdero, Unipan and Oskamp
1997). With the promotion of environmental protection and green consumption concept, Chinese’s environmental
awareness is improved step by step. However, present research on green consumption stays at Chinese consumers’
attitude or intention level, rarely on the process from attitude to actual behavior. Notwithstanding, in a real case,
most Chinese consumers reckon green consumption behavior of an "easier said than done" thing. Namely, some
consumers holding high and positive green consumption attitude may carry out little green consumption behavior.
Why dose there lie the incongruence between one’s consciousness and behavior?
To answer the question above, some scholars address that perceived behavioral control (PBC) is a reason to
explain. PBC includes two dimensions, perceived control (whether within the control range) and perceived
difficulty (whether difficult or easy). The former, also known as self-efficacy, reflects that whether the executive
results are within the scope of one’s own control perception, or competence perception or confidence towards
some behavior. For example, if consumers assume they do not need to take responsibility for one issue or their
individual behavior cannot change the situation, they are unlikely to take actions (Kim and Choi 2005; Webb,
Mohr and Harris 2008). The latter performs the perception of difficulty degree, in other words, the expectation on
obstacle in consumer behavior, including the perception of time, money, convenience and other aspects. If
consumers believe that the implementation is of greater difficulty or has more barriers, even if they show positive
attitudes, they may not make practical action. Then, is perceived behavioral control the very reason behind the lag
of green consumption behavior?
Up till now, study on the relationship between consumer green attitude and behavior have been contradicted.
Some believe that environmentally friendly attitude and behavior are positive relevant with green purchasing
behavior, while others have pointed out no significant connection lies between them. Will it be possible that
attitude indirectly affect the green consumption behavior with moderators? Limited research can be found in this
area both home and abroad. Therefore, this article is to reveal the underlying reason why Chinese consumers think
green consumption "easier said than done", based on the existing research results, taking PBC into consideration.
Literature Review
1. Green Consumption Attitude and Behavior
Attitude is a psychological tendency to make a positive/negative evaluation on an entity in a way (Fishbein and
Ajzen 1975; Eagly and Chaiken 1993). Accordingly, Milfont (2007) defined environmental attitude as a
perception or belief, towards the positive/negative evaluation on natural environment and the factors impacting it.
In other words, environmental attitude is individual’s general opinion on ecological environment and problems.
To segment, the environmental attitude is combined of general environmental attitude and specific environmental
attitude. General environmental attitude is considered as a collection of recognition, emotions, and behavior
intention related to environment (Schultz, Shriver Tabanico and Khazian 2004).
Some environmental sociologists also take it equivalently as "environmental concerns" (Dunlap and Jones 2002),
environmental values, environmental sensitivity and environmental beliefs. While specific environmental attitude
refers to individual’s thoughts and attitude to particular environmental behavior, such as green consumption or
waste recycling. Green consumption attitude in this study belongs to specific environmental attitude, referring
consumers who are aware that human survival and development is threatened by environmental problems, and
that they have the responsibility to improve the environment. They own not only the initiative to understand the
relevant knowledge of green consumption, but also the awareness of green consumption.
Many scholars (Peattie and Ring 1993; Chan 2001; Kim and Choi 2005; Mostafa 2007) have already drawn a
clear line between green consumption attitude and behavior. Researchers bring in different concepts according to
their theoretical perspectives and research problems, including "responsible environmental behavior" (Hines,
Hungerford and Tomera 1987),"behavior with environmental significance"(Stern 2000), "pro-environmental
behavior" and "positive environmental behavior". Although these terms vary from one to another, all of them
focus on "individuals" active and real actions to prevent or solve environmental problems. Apart from the general
environmental behavior, in reality, specific environmental actions appear under some special circumstances.
Green consumption behavior in this study belongs to specific environmental behavior, which is known as
consumers’ purchase and usage of green products in daily life, with a purpose on saving resources, reducing
pollution, protecting ecological environment and leading to a safe and healthy life and so on.
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2. Impact of Green Consumption Attitude on Green Consumption Behavior

Foreign study on green consumption dates back a long time ago, mainly focused on the antecedents, including
environment-related knowledge, attitude, psychological or personal factors (such as self-efficacy and perceived
difficulty) as well as cultural and economic factors. Some scholars have even constructed an empirical model of
green consumption behavior. Most study shows that environmental attitude is one of the most important variables
that affect environmental behavior, and moreover, general and specific environmental attitude have better
predictability to general and specific environmental behavior respectively.
Hines, Hungerford and Tomera (1987) analyzed 128 environmental behavior related articles published after 1971,
and found the main factors influencing environmental behavior include personal factors (sense of control, attitude
and personal responsibility), operational capacity (skills and strategy), environmental knowledge and situational
factors. They also pointed out that compared to general environmental attitude; the specific one has greater impact
towards environmental behavior. In addition, three important factors have been further simplified, which are
attitude, personal ability and situational factors (Stern 2000). Since then, researchers have done a great amount of
empirical research, and almost all the findings demonstrate the influence of environmental attitude on
environmental behavior. For example, an investigation on the Swiss residents’ consumption behavior for green
products reveals a positive effect of individual environmental attitude and belief son green consumption behavior
(Tanner and Kast et al., 2003). Kaiser and Gutscher (2003) clarified that environmental attitude and sense of
responsibility, perceived behavioral control and behavioral intentions are major factors influencing environmental
behavior. Moreover, Chan’s (2001) study on Chinese’s green consumption behavior indicated that when
consumers hold positive attitude to green consumption, green consumption attitude can be successfully turned
into consumption intention, but this kind of intention cannot sequentially lead to an effective transformation into
behavior.
In addition, some scholars conduct research on environmental behavior or green consumption behavior, based on
the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Accordingly, 295 environmental managers ‘behavioral tendency to
pollution prevention were studied, along with a result indicating pollution prevention is significantly influenced
by the positive impact of attitude, subjective social norms and past behavior, yet no significant relevance with
perceived behavioral control(Mark, Irene and Frieze 2000). In addition, started with TPB, a study was conducted
on the Brix worth residents’ disposal plan of household waste in UK(Michele, Paul and Margaret 2004). The
study showed other than the factors in TPB (attitude, subjective social norms, perceived sense of control, etc.),
among other factors like situation conditions, recycling result, the degree of social concern and past recycling
behavior, the primary factor influencing recycling behavior is attitude towards waste recycling.
What has been discussed above implies that quite a few researches have shown the positive impact of
environmental attitude on environmental behavior. Notwithstanding, early studies in social psychology have
pointed out that the predictability of attitude to actual behavior is invalid. Therefore, the conclusions and findings
on environmental behavior are incongruent with those in classic psychology. Furthermore, some scholars believe
that the relationship between environmental attitude and behavior is not significant at all. Some though tweak
relationship exists between those two (Berger and Corbin 1992).Yan, Liu and Chen(1991) also supported the view
that positive environmental attitude cannot drive to practical environmental action under most circumstances.
Moreover, through experimental design, Zhao (2010) discovered environmental attitude does not own the ability
to predict behavior and neither does environmental behavior intention. Even in recent study, likewise, the role of
green attitude in affecting behavior is skeptical. Based on TPB, attitude, norm and willingness to pay are analyzed
through 2012 German national household panel survey with a sample amount of 12,113, and interesting enough,
the results indicate attitude has no significant influence on green buying (Moser 2015). For the inconsistency,
some scholars proposed some explanation. The reason may lie in diversity, variables measurement, reliability,
validity, and the effects of other variables in environmental behavior (Mainieri, Barnett, Valdero, Unipan and
Oskamp 1997).
In addition, the original assumption may be the very problem (Bamberg 2003). Normally, the assumption states as
"general attitude (e.g. environmental concern) has a direct impact on the specific behavior,” but only particular
situational cognition will affect specific behavior. Hence, follow-up research should not take it for granted that
environmental concern serves as a direct determine to actual behavior. Although to a certain extent, the
explanation above makes sense, it has not been widely accepted by scholars.

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What is more, that we simply attribute to the difference between general and specific environmental difference
makes it much less convincing. In the study of green consumption, we found that "easier said than done" is a
repeated description mentioned by respondents. Lately research has proved that marketing mix strategies are
helpful in shortening the gap between consumers’ green beliefs and behavior (Davari & Strutton 2014), however,
without answering the reason why this gap shows up. The objective of this article is to dig out the reason behind
"easier said than done “point of view, from the perspective of previously mentioned green consumption attitude-
behavior incongruence, to examine whether this process is moderated by perceived behavioral control (perceived
control and perceived difficulty).
3. Perceived Behavioral Control
"Whether within the control range" and "whether difficult or easy" are two different concepts (Chan and Fishbone
1993). When studying on PBC, these two concepts are turned into two factors separately, perceived control and
perceived difficulty(Trafimow, Sheeran, Conner and Finlay 2002).Furthermore, Armitage (1999) discovered that
the reason PBC is of low reliability is because it reflects on two dimensions (internal control and external control)
instead of single one, wherein internal control refers to individual’s perception level to internal behavior or
control, namely perceived control; while external control points to the judgment of external promotion/obstruction
in individual’s behavior, that is, perceived difficulty. Clearly, PBC contains two dimensions, perceived control,
and perceived difficulty. For one thing, perceived control is a concept similar to perceived consumer effectiveness
(PCE), indicating whether adperson’s perception to execution result is within the control range, or competence
recognition and confidence on some kind of behavior. Perceived control in green consumption behavior reflects
on to what extent consumers believe their efforts can help improve the environment. If family’s PCE is low, they
will consume more energy (Seligman, Kriss, Darley, Fazio, Becker and Pryor 1979).
This is because they do not believe either they should burden personal responsibility for the energy crisis or
individual behavior can ease the energy crisis. Straughan and Roberts’s (1999) research indicated PCE has strong
predictability to ecologically conscious consumer behavior (ECCB), even stronger than environmental concerns.
Generally, there is a correlation between PCE and behavioral intentions, as well as predictive value (Terry and
O'Leary 1995; Manstead and van Eekelen 1998; Armitage and Conner 2001). For another, perceived difficulty is
to weigh the difficulty or prediction of adverse factors in some specific consumer behavior, including the
perception of time, money, convenience and other aspects. Trafimow, Sheeran, Conner, and Finlay (2002)
concluded that perceived control and perceived difficulty are two independent variables, which are affecting
behavioral intentions and actual behavior respectively, wherein perceived difficulty has stronger predictive ability,
with a wider range of applications. Combined with the definitions of previous work, this study defines perceived
control the evaluation on the possible results after green consumption behavior, including consumers’ and their
family’s safety and health issue and assessment of environmental improvement; perceived difficulty as the
cognition of existing barriers or difficulty in green consumption behavior, such as time, money, incomplete
certification of green products and overall factors emerging perceived risk on buying green products. Domestic
scholars studied the impact of perceived results on consumers’ consumption behavior on green vegetable (Qing,
Yan and Wang 2006), and found with higher perception, namely consumers believe green consumption behavior
is good for environment and themselves to a greater extent, they show more willingness to buy green vegetables;
naturally more reluctance in the contrary situation. The greater perceived difficulty shows, the more it hampers
consumers’ transition from willingness to real green consumption behavior. As is usually the case, difficulty will
reduce the likelihood of green consumption behavior in reality.
Over viewing foregoing discussion, we enumerated a long list of green consumption related research.
Nevertheless, there remains some theoretical questions to answer. On the one hand, the deduction of green
consumption attitude-behavior comes along with contradiction. Though some scholars have given an explanation,
it has not been generally recognized. On the other hand, in real life, consumers feel that green consumption
behavior "easier said than done". We assume the reason is that perceived behavioral control plays a part in the
whole green consumption attitude-behavior process.
According to present study, even though the constituents of PBC are distinguished from diverse perspectives,
most scholars believe PBC is a two-dimensional variable. Based on this, we divide PBC into perceived control
and perceived difficulty, to study their moderating difference on attitude-behavior process, devastating to answer
the questions posed above, as well as supplementing the green consumption behavior research.

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Research Framework and Assumptions

Research framework is shown in Figure 1. Researchers think perceived behavioral control (perceived control and
perceived difficulty) is a moderator between the green consumption attitude and green consumption behavior.
In addition, factors that affect green consumption behavior in existing work will be manipulated as control
variables, including environmental knowledge and values. In next part, the role of PBC and its dimensions, and
relevant assumptions will be proposed.

Green consumption Green consumption

attitude behavior

Perceived behavioral Control variables:

control (perceived control green consumption
and perceived difficulty) knowledge and values

Figure 1 Research Framework

1. Moderating Effect of Perceived Behavioral Control (PBC)
When people are about to take actions, they will form a recognition of the results coming and how hard it would
be to reach. That is perceived behavioral control. Further, it is popularly recognized by scholars that PBC can be
divided into two dimensions, perceived control and perceived difficulty. Without the thought of accounting for an
issue or believing in the power of individual behavior in changing the situation, consumers are unlikely to take
actions (Kim and Choi 2005; Webb, Mohr and Harris 2008). The theory of planned behavior has confirmed that
when in terms of decisions, rational trade-offs is not enough, because whether individuals can conduct specific
behavior at a particular time is greatly depending on the resources and opportunities able to dominate (such as
skills, money and cooperation with others, etc.).In short, the higher individual's dependence on resources and
opportunities is, the lower control of the implementation of the act presents. Overall, other than attitude, PBC also
affects consumers’ green consumption behavior.
2. Moderating Effect of Perceived Control
Perceived consumer effectiveness, environmental concerns, and attitude are derived as independent variables by
factor analysis, and PCE turns out to be a good predictor of eco-friendly behavior (Ellen, Weiner and Cobb-
Walgren 1991). Perceived control reflects individual evaluation of their own behavior, while attitude simply
reflects consumer evaluation of the activities or problems, and one step forward, perceived control can moderate
the green attitude-behavior relationship (Berger and Corbin 1992). For example, a group of people who are highly
concerned about the environmental situation may hit high scores in attitude measurement, yet pretty low in
perceived control and likelihood of actual environmental behavior, merely because they think that only large
enterprises, government and other genius individuals are capable to find a solution rather than themselves. In this
case, the researchers might make a mistake concluding that a high level of attention is not consistent with attitude
and behavior. In contrast, another group with low attitude score and surprisingly high perceived control score,
those who do not care about the environment and believe individual efforts are not necessary but effective, shows
little likelihood to conduct environmentally friendly behavior either. However, in this case, a reversed result
indicates congruence between attitude and behavior. It is easy to deduce that only attitude and perceived control
both working together can form green consumption behavior. When consumers have a positive attitude to green
product, as well as with high perceived control, then they will conduct green consumption behavior. Based on
that, we propose H1:
H1: Compared to high perceived control, consumers’ green attitude is harder to (or cannot) form green
consumption behavior under low perceived control; in other words, low perceived control will weaken the
connection between consumer attitude and green consumption behavior.

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3. Moderating Effect of Perceived Difficulty

Blake (1999) proposed value-action gap for studying attitude–behavior gap. He believed that numerous models of
environment-friendly behavior are constrained, since some limitations like individual, society and institutions are
not fully considered. Therefore, within the value-action gap model, Blake analyzed the whole process from
environmental concern to environmentally friendly behavior, resulting in the classification of three obstacles:
personality, responsibility, and practicality. Among them, personality is associated with individual, such as
personal attitude and traits; responsibility is similar to the internal and external control tendency, implying when
individuals feel their behavior cannot affect the environmental situation or they bear no responsibility, they would
not take environmentally friendly action; practicality is involved with social or institutional limits, such as time,
economy and the lack of information, which will hamper environment-friendly behavior. Even if consumers have
a positive attitude towards green consumption, nonetheless with the existence of time, money or information
restrictions or insufficiency, they are unlikely to take the green consumption behavior, which is exactly the core of
consumer’s perceived difficulty put forward in this paper. Quite commonly, a consumer may be pretty concerned
about environmental issues, holding a will to contribute to environmental protection, but if he thinks it
troublesome to implement (such as bring his own shopping bags to supermarket, etc.), he is not likely to take
environmental behavior. Same theory for green consumption, consumers are probably reluctant to purchase green
product because of the higher price. Based on this, we put forward the H2:
H2: Compared to low perceived difficulty, consumers’ green attitude is harder to (or cannot) form green
consumption behavior under high perceived difficulty; in other words, high perceived difficulty will weaken the
connection between consumer attitude and green consumption behavior.
Research Methods
1. Measurement
Independent variable. Green consumption attitude has been measured by many scholars (e.g. Chan 2001; Tanner
and Kast 2003). Combining reference to the previous scales with further additions and amendments, we generated
a more suitable and local scale in order to make linguistic equivalence.
Dependent variable. In addition, green consumption behavior is measured by numbers of researchers (e.g.
Chan 2001; Tanner and Kast 2003; Kim and Choi 2005). Some scales are developed on the respondents’ actual
green purchase within a month, therefore containing much more questions. In consideration of consumer’s recall
difficulty, learning from predecessors’ scales, we made somerelevant adjustments and finally designed 8
questions.
Moderators. Perceived control, namely consumer’s evaluation of the results of their actions, can be measured in
the same way as perceived consumer effectiveness. Existing measurement items of PCE are tested through
exploratory analysis (Berger and Corbin 1992; Kim and Choi 2005). Perceived control and PCE are of great
similarity according to previous literature review. Hence, we utilized measure scales of PCE to measure perceived
control. Perceived difficulty is the perception of the difficulty of green consumption implementation (time,
money, etc.). Tanner and Kast (2003) measured both time and money, however, in Chinese context risk obstacles
have to be included when measuring perceived difficulty. That is because great risk obstacles lurk in China's green
consumption in reality, consisting of incomplete certification standards for green products and fake green products
on the market.
Control variables. The definition of green consumption knowledge is not uniform in prior study. It can be
divided into natural environmental knowledge, environmental knowledge, and environmental action knowledge,
reckoning that knowledge begets a direct impact on behavioral intention (Hines, Hungerford, and Tomera 1987).
Also, there is another way to classify through separating it into system knowledge (knowledge of ecosystem or
environmental issues), action-related knowledge (knowledge of taking relevant moves) and the knowledge of
effectiveness (the pros and cons of the results led by specific behavior) (Frick, Kaiser and Wilson 2004). The
latter two have a direct impact on behavior, and what is more, system knowledge affects behavior through those
two.

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This article focuses on the value tendency to collectivism and individualism. Plenty of study discovers that
collectivists have a preference on green consumption behavior (e.g. Chan 2001; Kim and Choi 2005).
Also, McCarty and Shrum (1994, 2001) proved that consumer’s collective beliefs positively related to recycling
beliefs and behavior.
2. Procedures
First, we carried out a qualitative interview with three teachers and nine postgraduate students in marketing,
mainly refining the fluency and precision of the questionnaire statements. Then, a sample survey was conducted.
Respondents were primarily college students as well as part of the youngsters who have no more than two-year
working experience. 200 questionnaires were distributed, and 189 copies reserved after excluding invalid
questionnaires.
Among all the participants, 42.3% were male and 57.7% were female, with an average age under 25. Their
monthly consumption mostly ranges 600-1500 yuan, accounting for 75.7%. In order to facilitate participants to
answer, green product in this research is daily consumer goods.
Analysis and Results
1. Reliability and Validity
First of all, the reliability was judged by Cronbach's α coefficient, and herein items with low reliability would be
excluded. According to the results (Table 1), PC4 was omitted to reach a higher reliability (Cronbach's α=0.771).
Table 1: Cranach’s α Analysis of Perception Control
Cranach’s α if Cronbach's α if
Cronbach's α Cronbach's α
Item Deleted Item Deleted
PC1 0.342 PC1 0.666
PC2 0.457 PC2 0.704
0.595 0.771
PC3 0.417 PC3 0.701
PC4 0.771
Next, LISREL8.51 confirmatory factor analysis was used to check discriminate validity and convergent
validity. After data analysis, 3 questions in green consumption behavior were distinguished, whose relevance to
the latent variable was less than 0.5. Particularly, we made an in-depth analysis on these three questions, and
assumed that they may be largely affected by other irrelevant situations. For example, "not using disposable
tableware on purpose when eating out" is possibly affected by whether the restaurant offers. Therefore, after
discreet consideration, these three items were removed, after which there retained only five questions on the
construct of green consumption behavior. Though the case it was, the model showed a relatively high level of
fitness as a result of confirmatory factor analysis (Figure 2) (Chi-
Square/df=1.25, NNFI=0.96, CF=0.97,RMSEA=0.036).

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Figure 2: Confirmatory Factor Analysis

Third, we gathered the reliability and validity of every latent variable (Table 2). In general, the composite
reliability shall be over 0.60 and AVE should be higher than 0.50, in order to get a recognized good result. The
composite reliability of each construct is high. Except AVE of green consumption behavior, other AVEs are larger
than the corresponding correlation coefficient, so discriminate validity proves to be a better one.
Table 2: Descriptive Statistical Variables, Correlation Coefficient, and AVE
Standard
Mean 1 2 3 4 5 6
Deviation
1. Green Consumption Attitude 4.287 0.709 0.818
2. Green Consumption Behavior 3.367 0.704 0.305** 0.615
3. Perceived Control 3.141 0.786 0.215** 0.869 ** 0.728
4. Perceived Difficulty 2.809 0.893 -0.220 ** -0.839 ** -0.906 ** 0.814
5. Green Consumption Knowledge 3.333 0.621 0.060 0.186 * 0.230 ** -0.208 ** 0.741
6. Values 4.133 0.469 0.150 * 0.087 0.006 -0.014 0.224 ** 0.661
AVE 0.670 0.378 0.530 0.662 0.549 0.437
Composite Reliability 0.890 0.749 0.771 0.854 0.785 0.699
Cronbach's α 0.884 0.753 0.771 0.853 0.780 0.700
Note: *indicates significance level of 0.05;**indicates significance level of 0.01. Below the diagonal shows the
mean Pearson correlation coefficient, and upper shows the square root of AVE.

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2. Results
This article utilized hierarchical multiple regression model, building three models to analyze the
data. Model 1 examined the role of the control variables, and Model 2 adds independent variables and moderators
on the basis of Model 1, and finally Model 3 adds the interaction of independent variables and moderators
compared with Model 2. In order to examine the interaction items, we did mean centering on all variables. This
step enables the standard deviation of each variable unchanged, yet reducing multi collinearity. Analysis results
are shown in Table 3.
Table 3: Hierarchical Multiple Regression Model Results
Variable Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Control Variables
0.199 0.037 0.025
Green consumption Knowledge
(2.371) * (0.917) (0.633)
0.072 0.107 0.100
Values
(0.650) (2.014) * (1.905)
Independent Variables
0.106 0.109
Green Consumption Attitude
(3.024) ** (3.087) **
0.549 0.531
Perceived Control
(7.561) *** (7.376) ***
-0.209 -0.209
Perceived Difficulty
(-3.291) ** (-3.339) **
Interaction Items
Green Consumption Attitude 0.343
* Perceived Control (2.696) **
Green Consumption Attitude -0.273
* Perceived Difficulty (-2.159) **
R2 0.037 0.788 0.798
Adjusted R2 0.026 0.783 0.790
F Value 3.544 ** 136.35 *** 102.307 ***
Freedom 2/186 5/183 7/181
Note:*indicates significance level of 0.05;** indicates significance level of 0.01;***indicates significant
level of 0.001.
For a more direct understanding of the moderating effects of perceived control and perceived difficulty,
interaction diagrams are shown in Figure 3 and Figure 4.

Low Perceived
Control

High Perceived
Control

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Figure 3: Interaction Diagram of Perceived Control

Low Perceived
Difficulty

High Perceived
Difficulty

Figure 4: Interaction Diagram of Perceived Difficulty

According to the hypothesis put forward earlier, perceived control and perceived difficulty moderate the
transformation from green consumption attitude to green consumption behavior. Model 3 in Table 3 supports H1
(Beta=0.343, P<0.05), that is, compared to high perceived control, consumers’ green attitude is harder to (or
cannot) form green consumption behavior under low perceived control. Still, Figure 3 illustrates that low
perceived control will weaken the connection between consumer attitude and behavior. Hence, H1 is supported.
Likewise, Model 3 supports (Beta=-0.273, P<0.05). That is, compared to low perceived difficulty, consumers’
green attitude is harder to (or cannot) form green consumption behavior under high perceived difficulty. Figure 4
demonstrates that high perceived difficulty will weaken the connection between consumer attitude and behavior,
and therefore H2 supported.
Conclusions and Discussion
1. Conclusion
In accordance with our findings, conclusion can be drawn as follows.
(1) Green consumption attitude has a positive impact on green consumption behavior, promoting green
consumption behavior into reality. Enlightened from that, for marketers, the initial step is to make consumers raise
a positive attitude towards green products, in order to attract them and increase sales. Specifically, companies can
utilize consumer education to drive consumers to form a correct understanding of green product, such as
environmental and personal health benefits.
(2) Perceived control has a moderating effect on the green consumption attitude-behavior process. To put it
straightforward, low (vs. high) perceived control will discount the effect on one’s changing green consumption
attitude into behavior. Therefore, the government and companies should fix not only on consumer’s attitude, but
also on individual’s perceived control. Even if consumers have a better attitude towards green consumption, but
holding low perceived control, consumers are unlikely to perform green consumption. Especially for housewives,
a group who masters the purchasing power of households, they concern about their families’ health, and hence
they value more on the social environment and food safety. All in all, it is essential to increase their perceived
control over their green consumption behavior, such as emphasizing the importance of the social environment and
family health.
Specifically, the government can stress personal power is necessary to improve the environment through public
service ads promotion, so as to establish consumers’ belief that their every little contribution to environmental
protection counts. Also, enterprises can enhance consumer’s perceived control in these ways: 1)promotion on the
belief that individual behavior can improve environmental situation; 2) consumer education to inform consumers
the merits of green product, through advertisements, leaflets, etc.; 3)always highlighting not only green products’
good for the environment, but also the advantages for family’s physical safety and health.

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The third point is a better match to the general consumer’s concerns, simply because family's purchases are
basically carried out by the hostesses, who are more worried about their family members’ health problems.
(3) Perceived difficulty has a moderating effect on the green consumption attitude-behavior process, too.
Specifically, high (vs. low) perceived difficulty will diminish the likelihood for consumers to transform green
consumption attitude into behavior. That is why perceived difficulty is a vital factor that cannot be ignored. Even
though consumers have a positive attitude, but if their perceived difficulty is high, there remains little chance for
them to conduct green consumption behavior.
In detail, the first task for the government is to reduce consumers’ perceived risk in following ways. On one hand,
government needs to reinforce the green product certification system. Given that in China's market there exists
fake green certified products, it will be tough for consumers to distinguish, and therefore more completed
supervision is a must. On the other hand, a third-party certification agency can be established, as a much more
objective and unprejudiced information resource. Under independent operation, failure is fatal for the certification
agency, depending on which we can ensure the authentication of information they provide. For enterprises, to
reduce consumer perceived difficulty and obstacles, they can first improve the channel construction of green
product, to make it easier for consumers to reach and purchase. Still, they should emphasize green product’s
benefits in various types of promotion, thereby reducing consumers’ sensitivity of price. At the same time, in the
production of green product, price control should be taken into consideration, to prevent consumers from running
away due to prohibitive price.
2. Contribution and Limitation
It is common that lots of consumers possess high attitude to green product; however, rarely get green consumption
behavior done. Firstly, this study makes a creative explanation of why consumers think green consumption
behavior "easier said than done.”
Findings imply that perceived control and perceived difficulty moderate the green consumption attitude-behavior
process. In detail, either low perceived control or high perceived difficulty can hinder high green consumption
attitude from turning into real green consumption behavior. Secondly, it supplements existing study on green
consumption attitude-behavior process. Existing research on green consumption mostly concentrated on the
antecedents, namely the factors that affect consumer's green consumption behavior, including green consumption
attitude, knowledge, and values. This paper, however, innovatively takes two dimensions of PBC (perceived
control and perceived difficulty) as a cutting point. For one thing, we prove that those two dimensions are
moderator of the green consumption attitude-behavior process, offering a brand-new perspective and idea. For
another, it enriches the study of perceived behavioral control. Finally, this study provides a basis for green
consumption behavior from consumer’s perception point of view.
This paper indeed fulfills current study, while enhancement continues to be desirable. First, this study claims that
green consumption attitude directly influences behavior, leaving out the mediating role of green consumption
attention. In the future, this concept is worth being studied. Second, this article studies from the perspective of
perceived behavioral control, whereas perceived behavioral control may be affected by situational factors.
Whereupon, future study can introduce situational factors into account. Last but not least, we have not examined
whether there lies significant variance on consumer psychology and demographic characteristics between
high/low perceived control and perceived difficulty, and it can be explored afterwards in this regard.

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