The purchasing decision for sustainable products based on the fundamentals of behavioral economics

• Autor(a) principal: Souza, Luciane Albuquerque Sá de
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Consumer Behavior Review
• DOI: 10.51359/2526-7884.2021.251033
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.ufpe.br/revistas/index.php/cbr/article/view/251033
• topic: behavioral economics; sustainable purchasing behavior; certainty effect; reflection effect; framing effect.; economia comportamental; comportamento de compra sustentável; efeito certeza; efeito reflexão; efeito framing.

Behavioral Economics focus on the characterization and analysis of aspects of decision-making behavior, counter-arguing the theory of full rationality. According to Kahneman and Tversky, there are dissonant phenomena in the decision-making process distinguishing rational and non-rational decision. This article presents the results of a research that aimed to verify how decisions taken by young adults to ensure a sustainable lifestyle are affected by the influencing aspects of decision, as advocated by Kahneman and Tversky. The descriptive/quantitative research used the survey method and considered data regarding frequency and percentage; 70 students from Faculdade Estácio Paraíba participated, mostly male (52.9%), between 18 and 25 years old (44.3%), single (57.1%) and employed (67.1%). Hypothesis 1 was confirmed, as participants faced with a choice between alternatives of uncertainty of gain, preferred an alternative of certain gain (certainty effect); Hypothesis 2 was confirmed, as respondents faced with a choice between loss uncertainty alternatives, avoided the right loss alternative (reflection effect); however, hypotheses 3 and 4 (framing effect) were not confirmed, as they did not corroborate the original study by Tversky and Kahneman. It is necessary to identify the different levels of ecological awareness of the population and consumption habits, in order to better understand the consumer and his environmentally sustainable behavior.