Research on consumers’ intention-behavior gap in sustainable diets: A moderating effects model incorporating face consciousness

The irrationality of China’s dietary consumption structure is becoming more and more prominent, posing a great challenge to resources, the environment and human health, and it is imperative to promote the transformation of the dietary structure into a more sustainable direction. Nevertheless, a discrepancy exists between consumers’ intentions and behaviors regarding sustainable diets, which somewhat diminishes the effectiveness of promoting such practices. Utilizing the extended MOA model, this paper systematically investigates the intention-behavior gap among consumers in the context of sustainable diets. It simultaneously examines how opportunity, ability, and face consciousness influence the translation of intention into actual behaviors within the Chinese cultural framework. To explore this further, participants were categorized into distinct cohorts based on their level of face consciousness (high-face-consciousness versus low-face-consciousness), enabling comparative analysis of variations in opportunity and ability moderating effects. Key findings from the empirical analysis reveal that a notable gap does indeed exist between consumers’ intentions and behaviors concerning sustainable diets. Regarding the moderating effects, factors such as the external environment, emotional information, and individual ability significantly facilitate the transition from intentions into actual sustainable dietary behaviors, whereas the moderating effect of rational information is not significant. Notably, the moderating effects vary across groups with different levels of face consciousness. Specifically, among individuals with low face consciousness, only emotional information demonstrates a significant positive impact. In contrast, for those with high face consciousness, the external environment, emotional information, and ability collectively enhance behavioral adoption. In addition, the study confirms that rational information does not exert a significant moderating effect on either high or low face consciousness groups.