A study of the neural mechanisms by which reference groups and low-carbon product types influence individual purchase decisions

Low-carbon consumption is an important way to alleviate environmental and resource pressures and realize sustainable development, but the existence of problems such as information asymmetry of implicit low-carbon products often hinders consumers' willingness to purchase. Nowadays, with the booming development of online social media, reference groups have become the main way to influence individual purchase decisions, However, the academic community lacks clarity on how these different reference groups influence low-carbon products with different attributes purchases and the underlying neural mechanisms. Therefore, grounded in the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), this study investigated the psychological mechanism of the interaction between reference group type (membership vs. aspirational) and low-carbon product attributes (explicit vs. implicit) on individuals' low-carbon purchase decisions using ERP and behavioral experiments. Our ERP and behavioral results reveal that in the early attention-getting stage (peripheral paths), the P200 amplitude induced by the member group was larger than that of the desire group, regardless of the attributes of the low-carbon product. This indicates that, in the early stage, consumers pay attention to the recommending group first, rather than the attributes of low-carbon products. More importantly, consumers pay attention to the recommendation of the member group rather than the aspirational group. In the later stage of evaluating decision-making (central paths), it was found that the recommendation of explicit low-carbon products by the eager group and the recommendation of implicit low-carbon products by the membership group induce relatively small N400 amplitudes, indicating that the two combinations of individuals have less perceived conflict; the former improves the individual's perceived benefit, and the latter reduces the individual's perceived risk, which is in line with the final results of the individual's purchasing decision. The findings reveal the role and neural mechanisms of reference groups in influencing individuals to purchase low-carbon products with different attributes, which promotes theoretical research and practical expansion of low-carbon consumption and neuromarketing,and provides a theoretical basis for enterprises to gain more attention and formulate more effective marketing strategies in the low-carbon market.