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Will “Green” Parents Have “Green” Children? The Relationship Between Parents’ and Early Adolescents’ Green Consumption Values

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Abstract

Green consumption values have been shown to motivate consumers to engage in green consumption practices. However, surprisingly little research has examined how green consumption values develop in young people. In the current study, we employed ecological socialization theory as a framework to investigate the process by which parents’ green consumption values shape similar values in their young adolescents. In Study 1, data from 722 Chinese families that included an early adolescent (ages 10 to 15) showed that both mothers’ and fathers’ green consumption values were positively associated with early adolescents’ green consumption values, and this association was mediated by each parent’s environmentally responsible consumption behavior. Study 2 replicated the results of Study 1 using two waves of matched parent-adolescent data collected a month apart from another group of 477 Chinese families. Furthermore, Study 2 showed that the mediation process identified in Study 1 was evident only when there was a close parent–child relationship. These findings have implications for cultivating the green consumption values of today’s youth. The results also have heuristic value for future research on the ecological socialization and inter-generational transmission of pro-environmental values.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71802195, 72072185, 71672195), and the Project of the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province (2020JJ5782). The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers, and Dr. Xiuyuan Tang for their excellent advice and critique.

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    1. School of Business, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, China

      Yanping Gong, Jian Li, Julan Xie & Qiuyin Lou

    2. Business School, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, China

      Long Zhang

    3. International College, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha, 410004, China

      Qiuyin Lou

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    Gong, Y., Li, J., Xie, J. et al. Will “Green” Parents Have “Green” Children? The Relationship Between Parents’ and Early Adolescents’ Green Consumption Values. J Bus Ethics 179, 369–385 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04835-y

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