Drawing upon the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) model, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), and Construal Level Theory (CLT), this study constructs a moderated mediation model to examine how intelligent recommendation-based advertisements influence green consumption intentions through empathy, while also investigating the moderating effects of green involvement and technological self-efficacy.
This study adopted an experimental design. Study 1 and 2 incorporated moderating variables using a multi-factor between-subjects design. By manipulating green involvement and measuring technological self-efficacy, the study comprehensively tested the moderated mediation model. All data were analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the Bootstrap method. Study 3 tested the moderating role of empathy, aiming to verify that empathy serves as a more suitable mediating variable than green involvement.
The results indicate that intelligent recommendation-based advertisements have no direct effect on green consumption intention; instead, empathy fully mediates this relationship. Furthermore, green involvement and technological self-efficacy moderate the relationship between intelligent recommendations and empathy, thereby enhancing green consumption intention.
First, unlike previous studies focused on traditional advertising, this paper focuses on the emerging form of intelligent recommendations, revealing their unique psychological influence mechanisms. Second, it pioneers the “algorithm-empathy” pathway linking technological systems to sustainable behavior, identifying empathy as a key mediating variable. Finally, it introduces and validates two critical moderating variables – green involvement and technological self-efficacy – deepening the theoretical exploration of the boundary conditions of intelligent recommendation-based advertising.
