The Effect Of Mortality Salience In Epidemic On Green Consumption:the Mediating Role Of Belonging Needs

Green consumption is a kind of consumption behavior characterized by environmental protection and resource saving.Most of the existing researches on green consumption focus on discussing which demographic variables will affect green consumption,describing "who" will choose green consumption,and the psychological motivation behind green consumption,that is,"why" has not been explored.In 2020,a worldwide COVID-19,people’s fear of pneumonia virus is essentially fear of death.During this period,we investigated the impact of the epidemic on people’s consumption behavior,and found that consumers’ green consumption tendency in the epidemic is more prominent than other typical consumption tendency.After further research,it is found that green consumption is mainly affected by environmentalism,self-esteem and interpersonal belonging.It corresponds to the main defense mechanism of death reminder,that is,cultural worldview,self-esteem and interpersonal relationship.Therefore,based on the perspective of fear management theory,this study aims to explore the impact of death information reminder on consumers’ green consumption and the psychological mechanism behind the impact.This study explored the relationship between death alert and green consumption in epidemic situation,and studied the role of three defense of death fear in it.The research hypothesizes that death reminders promote consumers’ green consumption tendency through environmentalist world outlook,self-esteem and belonging needs.In this study,a total of 593 subjects were investigated by questionnaires and two situational experiments to study the impact of death reminders on green consumption behavior,furthermore,it further tests the mediating role of self-esteem,cultural world view defense and belonging demand in the impact of death reminder on green consumption,the results are as follows:(1)In the context of the epidemic,the trend of consumers to choose green products has increased significantly.(2)Mortality salience based on epidemic situation can increase consumers’ green consumption tendency.(3)The needs of belonging plays a partial mediating role between mortality salience and green consumption tendency,while self-esteem and cultural world outlook defense have no significant mediating role.Mortality salience affects green consumption through the mediating role of attribution demand.This shows that green consumption may be a prosocial consumption behavior,and its consumption motivation comes from belonging and interpersonal needs,rather than values or self-improvement,and green consumption can resist death anxiety to some extent.