The Impact of Natural Empathy on Green Purchase Behavior : An ERP Study

Due to the attitude-behavior gap in green consumption, it is necessary to explore what factors can promote actual green purchase behavior. Currently, few studies have explored the impact of natural empathy on consumers’ green purchase behavior. In this study, event-related potentials (ERPs) was used to reveal the timing of brain activities to further examine how individuals with or without natural empathy make choices between traditional products and green products. Behaviorally, compared with the control group, the natural empathy group showed a higher purchase rate of green product and spent less time when making decisions on buying green products. For the natural empathy group, buying green products spent less time than buying traditional products. Neurophysiologically, compared with the control group, the natural empathy group elicited smaller N2 and N400 amplitude when buying green products. For the natural empathy group, buying green products evoked a smaller N2 amplitude compared to buying traditional products. These findings indicated that individuals with natural empathy face less decision conflict when buying green products, and are more likely to take actual green purchase behavior