What is green worth to you? Activating environmental values lowers price sensitivity towards electric vehicles

We report two studies, testing the assumption that activating environmental values increases consumers' willingness to pay for electric vehicles (EVs). We hypothesized that sustainable products such as EVs enable consumers to meet their activated values. In Study 1 (N = 171), activating environmental values resulted in more positive evaluations of EV costs as compared to the control group. Information about the product moderated effects of value activation on price evaluations: Value activation only improved EV cost evaluations when the product was presented as superior to current standards. Findings of Study 2 (N = 100) indicated that price evaluation effects in Study 1 were based on value activation altering internal thresholds for sustainable product prices. Moreover, value activation resulted in less sensitive reactions to increases in price, that is, in lowered price sensitivity towards EVs.