“Amplification” and “suppression”: the impact of emotional prosody on green purchase behaviour—a study based on the dual-attitude model

A significant discrepancy exists between high and low purchase rates in China’s green product market, reflecting a notable deviation between consumer attitudes and Behaviours. This study explores the impact of emotional prosody on green product purchasing Behaviour and its underlying mechanisms. The research findings are as follows. Generally, green purchasing Behaviour is predominantly influenced by negative implicit attitudes (Study 1). Neutral emotional prosody increases the inconsistency between implicit and explicit attitudes, leading to a significant deviation between attitudes and Behaviour (Study 2). Pleasant emotional prosody amplifies the influence of positive explicit attitudes on green purchasing Behaviour, directly promoting consumers’ green purchasing Behaviour (Study 3). Fear-inducing emotional prosody suppresses the influence of negative implicit attitudes on green purchasing Behaviour, indirectly enhancing the impact of positive explicit attitudes on green purchasing Behaviour (Study 4). This study fills a research gap on how attitudes influence green purchasing Behaviour and provides guidance for companies in designing audio-visual advertisements for green products.