Sustainability and Social Responsibility

“I’m Not Feeling Comfortable About My Favorite Brand”: An Examination of How Environmental Versus Labor Issues Influence Consumer Perceptions of Fashion Brands

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Abstract

The influence of sustainability issues with fashion brandson consumers’ cognitive and emotional dissonance. This study seeks tounderstand how consumers think and feel when they read news articles about environmentalissues (i.e., water pollution) compared to an article about labor issues (i.e.,working condition). A convenience sample of 282 college students was collected ata Southern university in the US. Participants were randomly assigned to one oftwo online news articles that highlighted sustainability issues with theidentified brand (i.e., environmental issue: n=146; labor issue: n=136). Totest the hypotheses for each treatment condition, multivariate general linearmodel and regression analyses were employed in SPSS. Findings show thatconsumers do not respond a like to different sustainability issues. Whenconsumers read about the environmental issue, cognitive dissonance led them tofeel less satisfied with their favorite fashion brands while emotional dissonancehad no impact. When consumers read about the labor issue, both cognitive andemotional dissonance led them to feel less satisfied with favorite fashionbrands. Across two sustainability issue groups, consumers negatively changedtheir attitude toward favorite fashion brands after reading the news articles.The results of this study clearly show how dissonance theory can be used toexplain the negative impact of sustainability issues on consumer responses totheir favorite fashion brands.

Keywords: Cognitive dissonance, emotional dissonance, brand satisfaction, brand attitude change, purchase intention

How to Cite:

Cho, E. & Kim, H., (2022) ““I’m Not Feeling Comfortable About My Favorite Brand”: An Examination of How Environmental Versus Labor Issues Influence Consumer Perceptions of Fashion Brands”, International Textile and Apparel Association Annual Conference Proceedings 78(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/itaa.13513