Research Article
The Awakened Choice of 'Homo Evolutis'
Published: January 2013 · Vol. 42, No. 3 · pp. 805-821
Full Text
Abstract
Today, leading companies pursue sustainability management through the implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Companies pursuing sustainability management contemplate the future vision of society and the environment as a whole, going beyond short-term profits visible before their eyes, and thus can be regarded as companies that pursue higher-order and multilateral management objectives. Meanwhile, products produced through sustainability management tend to have higher consumer prices because their production costs are higher than those of competing products, making it difficult for ordinary consumers living on limited budgets to choose them. However, if a majority of consumers shun the products of companies that practice sustainability management due to their low price competitiveness, these sustainable products cannot survive in the market. Therefore, at this juncture, it is critically important to study the characteristic responses of consumers who choose sustainable products. In this study, we focused on two aspects of a product's sustainability attributes—"social contribution" and "environmental protection"—and measured and analyzed consumers' brainwaves using EEG (Electroencephalography) as they responded to product information and pricing related to sustainability, thereby deriving neuromarketing implications. The experimental study was conducted by presenting product information and prices for sustainable and conventional products across two product categories: coffee beans and tumblers. The EEG analysis results showed that when subjects were exposed to information about sustainable products compared to conventional products, neural activity in the frontal theta and gamma bands was higher. Furthermore, among consumers who chose sustainable products, it was confirmed that when exposed to sustainable product information, alpha band neural activity was higher in the fronto-parietal neural network—which governs higher-order cognitive functions—compared to consumers who chose conventional products. We term these consumers, who selectively purchase sustainable products using higher-order cognitive functions based on the fronto-parietal network, making what we call "awakened choices," as "Homo Evolutis." This study holds academic significance as the first to present the neuroscientific mechanisms underlying the consumer decision-making process of these individuals.
