Promoting textile product repair services in the European setting: do emotions shape consumers’ evaluations?

Abstract

Promoting repair services as a viable alternative to disposal is a desirable approach to sustainable consumption. Grounding on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) model, this work explores the role of emotions, both positive (happiness) and negative (anger and sadness) in triggering textile product repair, its antecedents and outcomes, understanding the interplay between emotional responses and cognitive evaluations in shaping pro-environmental behaviors. A laboratory experiment adopting facial micro-expression analysis and a survey study on final consumers confirm that leveraging emotions, especially negative ones, boosts intention to repair and positively impacts consumers’ evaluation of the practice. The study further contributes to the Right-to-Repair literature by depicting the antecedents and outcomes of repair intention in the European setting, where laws regulating repair have been recently introduced. Implications for practitioners and policymakers are provided.