title: Attitudes vs. Purchase Behaviors as Experienced Dissonance: The Roles of Knowledge and Consumer Orientations in Organic Market.
abstract: This research focuses on the incongruity between positive attitudinal responses but a lack of purchase behavior in organic markets. According to cognitive dissonance theory, consumer orientations toward the benefits attributed to organic products (environmental protection, health, hedonic) relieve the dissonance that results from this attitude-behavior incongruity. Knowledge also functions as a transmitter, from positive attitudes to purchase behaviors, thereby reducing the incongruity. Using quota sampling in a survey study, this paper tests the hypotheses from linear regression models. The results show that orientations and knowledge improve the congruity between attitudes and purchase behaviors toward organic products. Moreover, interaction effects arise between the environmental protection orientation and knowledge and between the hedonic orientation and knowledge. Increasing knowledge mitigates the difference between attitudes and purchase behaviors, especially for consumers with environmental protection or hedonic orientations. These findings have several important implications for research and practice.
authors.affiliation: Department of Business Economics and Administration, University of Salamanca Salamanca, Spain.
authors.forename: María
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hidalgo-Baz
authors.affiliation: IME Instituto Multidisciplinar de Empresa (Multidisciplinary Institute for Enterprise), University of Salamanca Salamanca, Spain.
authors.forename: Mercedes
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Martos-Partal
authors.affiliation: IME Instituto Multidisciplinar de Empresa (Multidisciplinary Institute for Enterprise), University of Salamanca Salamanca, Spain.
authors.forename: Óscar
authors.initials: Ó
authors.lastname: González-Benito
keywords: cognitive dissonance theory; environmental protection orientation; health orientation; hedonic orientation; organic market knowledge; organic products