Big Five personality traits and green consumption: bridging the attitude-intention-behavior gap

Purpose This study examines the roles of Big Five personality traits, including conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, neuroticism and openness to experience, in shaping green consumption behavior, as well as bridging the attitude-intention-behavior gap in environmentally friendly consumption and testing the gender differences between these associations. Design/methodology/approach A dataset of 611 consumers was collected by means of mall-intercept surveys in major Vietnamese cities. Structural equation modeling (SEM) via AMOS 24.0 was employed to test the proposed conceptual framework and hypotheses, while the PROCESS approach was utilized to estimate mediation standardized regression coefficients. Findings The study revealed that in addition to extraversion, other personality traits (agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience and neuroticism) were strongly associated with green consumption. Moreover, attitude towards green products and intention to buy environmentally friendly products were determined to have key roles in explaining consumers' pro-environmental behavior. There was also a notable difference in the impact of personality traits on men's and women's green consumption. Practical implications This study provides useful recommendations for administrational practices seeking to understand consumer behavior, build appropriate marketing and communication campaigns and attract customers to buy environmentally friendly products. Originality/value This study makes efforts to resolve the attitude-intention-behavior gap, a recurring theme in the green consumption literature, as well as illustrates the significance of Big Five personality traits in explaining attitude, intention and behavior when purchasing green products. This research also demonstrates that Big Five personality traits have significantly different effects on green consumption attitudes and intention to carry out pro-behavioral consumption.