{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,25]],"date-time":"2026-08-25T09:25:30Z","timestamp":1787649930328,"version":"build-2736575974"},"reference-count":47,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"9","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,25]],"date-time":"2026-08-25T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1787616000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Humanities and Social Sciences Youth Foundation of the Ministry of Education of China","award":["23YJC840009"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["23YJC840009"]}]},{"name":"Special Project on the Reform of Fundamental Research Funding for the Universities of Zhejiang Provincial Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning","award":["25NDJC141YBMS"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["25NDJC141YBMS"]}]},{"name":"Hangzhou Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning Project","award":["M23JC079"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["M23JC079"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Behav. Sci.","Behavioral Sciences"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Green consumption research has long documented a gap between favorable environmental attitudes and concrete sustainable choices. Yet less is known about why consumers who value sustainability sometimes doubt that their own actions can matter. Across five studies of Chinese consumer samples (N = 1499), this article develops an efficacy-translation account of green consumption. The account proposes that global self-esteem is associated with perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE), the belief that individual consumption can contribute to environmental improvement. It therefore specifies PCE as a domain-specific collective-impact belief rather than as a generic efficacy construct. The evidence incorporates trait and state self-esteem, measured and manipulated PCE, and multiple green-consumption outcomes, validated by robust regression, bootstrap mediation, internal meta-analysis, specification-curve analysis, and a limited computational audit. Self-esteem was positively associated with green consumption across the five studies, with a random effects pooled association of r=0.164, 95% CI [0.114, 0.213]. In Study 2A, the measured indirect association through PCE was 0.105, 95% bootstrap CI [0.048, 0.164]. These results are consistent with PCE as one pathway linking self-worth to sustainable consumption, but they do not establish causal mediation or generalize beyond the sampled cultural context.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/bs16091477","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,25]],"date-time":"2026-08-25T09:04:30Z","timestamp":1787648670000},"page":"1477","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["From Self-Worth to Sustainable Choice: An Efficacy-Translation Account of Green Consumption"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"16","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5339-5358","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Tao","family":"Jiang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Center for German-speaking Country Studies, Zhejiang University of Science and Technology, Hangzhou 310023, China"},{"name":"School of Management, Zhejiang University of Science and Technology, Hangzhou 310023, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Fengpei","family":"Hu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Management, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310000, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xiadan","family":"Yang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Management, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310000, China"},{"name":"School of Asia Europe Business, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200241, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Ming","family":"Guo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Center for German-speaking Country Studies, Zhejiang University of Science and Technology, Hangzhou 310023, China"},{"name":"School of Management, Zhejiang University of Science and Technology, Hangzhou 310023, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,25]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"163","DOI":"10.1177\/09637214261419427","article-title":"The integration of explanation and prediction in behavioral science","volume":"35","author":"Almaatouq","year":"2026","journal-title":"Current Directions in Psychological Science"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"37","DOI":"10.1353\/obs.2019.0001","article-title":"Estimating treatment effects with causal forests: An application","volume":"5","author":"Athey","year":"2019","journal-title":"Observational Studies"},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"463","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jclepro.2014.09.075","article-title":"Green products: An exploratory study on the consumer behaviour in emerging economies of the East","volume":"87","author":"Biswas","year":"2015","journal-title":"Journal of Cleaner Production"},{"key":"ref_4","unstructured":"Branden, N. 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