With the deterioration of the human living environment, the consumption of eco-friendly products has received increasing attention, specifically with regard to morality. Given the positive metaphorical associations between morality and up-position, up-displayed eco-friendly products can enhance consumers’ positive responses to such products. More importantly, we find that the up-position enhancement effect depends on consumers’ psychological distance from environmental issues. The results from five studies (Studies 1a, 1b, 1c, 2, and 3) demonstrate that when consumers perceive a far psychological distance from environmental issues, up-displaying ecofriendly products can enhance their processing fluency for product information, resulting in more positive product evaluations and higher purchase intentions. However, the enhancement effect of up-displaying ecofriendly products is attenuated when consumers perceive environmental issues as proximal to them. The present findings theoretically contribute to dual-processing models and construal level theory and provide practical benefits to companies’ marketing strategies of eco-friendly products.
