Investigating the relationship between personal values and green consumption in students of Shahid Beheshti University

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Department of Psychology, Faculty of Educational Science and Psychology, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Introduction:
In recent decades, the growth of environmental pollution has led to the emergence of a new type of consumer called the green consumer. They regard themselves as responsible for the environment and use products with less damage to the environment. By recognizing these consumers, companies are putting more effort to make their business greener to achieve this market segment. Therefore, identifying the factors that influence the selection of green products and services is important. Since the values of individuals, as an important social phenomenon, is influential in shaping, controlling and predicting their behavior, they can affect the green consumption behavior. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between each ethical value and the green consumption behavior.
Material and methods:
This is an applied research that uses fundamental research findings to identify and solve various problems. In addition, a survey was carried out. The statistical population of this study included 17067 students studying at Shahid Beheshti University from all faculties and educational levels in 2017. The convenience sampling method was used for sampling. According to the sample size table, 375 people were selected and 353 questionnaires were analyzed. In order to evaluate the students' values, Schwartz Personal Values Questionnaire was used. The reliability of the test was estimated at 0.893 by calculating the Cronbach's alpha coefficient. In order to measure the green consumption, five questions were used, the validity and reliability of which were acceptable. In order to analyze the findings, descriptive and inferential statistical methods were carried out by SPSS software.
Results and discussion:
Comparison of descriptive statistics showed that the reason why people used green cars was easy transportation to the university (37.7%), helping to improve the environment (36.3%), reasonable prices (14.2%) and to diversify their trips (10.8%). The relation between the use of green cars for helping to improve the environment with each of Schwartz's ethical values and the relationship between the preference of using green products with these values showed that the correlation coefficient between the preferences of using green products and the excitement value is r= -0.114, which is significant at the level of 0.01. In other words, there is a significant and negative relationship between the use of green products and the excitement value. However, there was not a significant relationship between the use of green products and other values. Also, there is a significant relation between using green products to help the environment (green consumption) and the universalism value (p <0.01, r = 0.145). There was no significant relationship between using green products to help the environment and other values.
Conclusion:
The results showed that not all of the Schwartz values in green consumers are equally important. The existence of individual differences justifies the individual's tendency to use green products. These findings can be applied to environmental practitioners, especially educators and marketers.

Keywords

References

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