关键词: 绿色消费, 许可效应, 道德自我调节

Abstract: Global environmental issues such as pollution of air and water, global warming, natural resource depletion, and climate change have brought serious challenges to the sustainable development of all countries. Global environmental problems are mainly caused by human activities, and consumers play an important role in promoting the development of a green society. People think that green consumers are more cooperative, altruistic, and moral. Unfortunately, psychological licensing of green consumption make us immoral. In the first section, we introduced the concepts and characteristics of psychological licensing of green consumption. Previous moral behavior could endow people with a psychological license, a perception that they were permitted to take an action or express a thought without fear. Green consumption could also make psychological licensing. We present evidence that green consumption in one domain could license otherwise-discrediting behavior in the same domain or an unrelated domain. Psychological licensing is not induced only by actually green consumption behavior; simply expressed green consumption attitude could also reduce subsequent moral behavior. In the second section, we explored the process of psychological licensing. From the time dimension, the licensing effect of green consumption included three stages: firstly, priming referred to the processing of the initial stimulus that affects the subsequent response to the stimulus, because the processing of the priming stimulus makes the content more accessible. Secondly, consumers' perception of green products were full of conflicts, from product level to image level. This conflict perception leads consumers to improve their moral image. At the same time, unconsciously, it would automatically suppress green information. Thirdly, people may be less likely to act morally after recalling past green consumption behavior. Because green consumption had already validated their moral qualities, people might feel absolved from the need to prove themselves further. In the third section, we explored its psychological mechanism. Perceiving oneself as moral led to a reduction in moral behavior, whereas perceiving oneself as less moral motivates increased in moral behavior. This pattern had been interpreted in terms of moral self-regulation, balancing moral self-consistent behavior against the costs inherent in moral behavior. Moral self-regulation included two models: namely moral credits and moral credentials which could be viewed as two independent routes. In the fourth section, we proposed two ways which could avoid psychological licensing, including changing behavior by shifting green self-concept, and shaping pro environmental values by changing behavior. For one, the theory of self-perception held that people would judge their attitude towards specific things according to their behavior, helping individuals build up stronger associations between one’s self-concept and green behavior, and therefore facilitated the development of green lifestyle. For another, the adoption of green lifestyle promoted pro environmental values and green consumption. In the final section, we discussed several limitations of previous studies and make some recommendations for future research accordingly.

Key words: green consumption, psychological licensing, moral self-regulation