Cause I'll Feel Good! The Influence of Anticipated Emotions on Consumer Pro-environmental Behavior

Although consumers express environmental attitudes, the pro-environmental behaviors are not dominant. Despite the benefits of sustainable technologies in reducing the environmental impacts of consumption, consumer adoption of these technologies is very slow to take off. We propose an integrated approach for investigating the effect of consumer anticipated emotions and moral norms on consumer adoption of a sustainable technology (electric vehicles). 576 Swedish car drivers participated in an online survey during winter of 2013. Our findings suggest that anticipated emotions directly influence consumer adoption intentions and the effect of moral norms on behavioral intentions is mediated by the anticipated emotions. The findings have implications for policymakers and car producers in promoting the zero emission transportation. We suggest communicating the positive emotions related to driving an electric vehicle and use of emotions in cars' energy labelling.