I Love ECO – An Exploratory Study of Emotional Influences on the Purchase and Consumption of Eco-Products

Sammanfattning: This thesis provides insights into consumers´ emotions influen-cing the decision-making process when buying and consuming ecological grocery products. Based on a constructionist perspective and an abductive view on the relation between theory and research, a qualitative ap-proach has been applied in order to fulfill the purpose of this study and to obtain in-depth knowledge about consumers’ emotions in an ecological consumption context. The main theories and concepts upon which this thesis is based, are the cognitive appraisals approach and the consumer deci-sion-making process. Concerning the latter one, the study fo-cuses particularly on the pre-purchase alternative evaluation and the post-purchase evaluation stage of the process. Empirical data is collected by conducting semi-structured inter-views with consumers purchasing and consuming ecological grocery products on a regular basis. The findings include two specific emotion sets for the two stag-es of the decision-making process. Underlying cognitive ap-praisals have been identified. Furthermore eco-consumers have been segmented according to different buying drivers, namely environmental concern, health aspects and taste. The study also describes cognitive and emotional differences among these groups. The study’s findings lead to several theoretical, practic-al and methodological contributions.