Environmental attitudes are important because they often, but not always, determine behavior that either increases or decreases environmental quality. Traditionally, attitudes have cognitive, affective, and conative elements, but environmental attitudes might be better described as having preservation and utilization dimensions. Pro-environmental attitudes rise and fall with current events and vary with age, gender, socioeconomic status, nation, urban-rural residence, religion, politics, values, personality, experience, education, and environmental knowledge. Environmental education aims to improve environmental attitudes but has mixed results. The mass media have been both helpful and harmful. Two prominent theories for explaining environmental attitude-behavior relations are the theory of planned behavior and value-beliefs-norm theory, which offer the benefit of parsimony and the shortcoming of incompleteness. Researchers have, for example, suggested additions to the theory of planned behavior, noting that pro-environmental behaviors vary in their effort to complete, which influences the attitude-behavior relation, and that many barriers to behavior change exist.
The theory of planned behavior proposes that behavior is predicted by behavioral intention which is, in turn, predicted by three base components: attitudes toward the behavior, subjective norms regarding the behavior, and perceived control over the behavior. Implied within this theory is that each of the three base components influence intentions, solely in that direction. However, despite being one of the most widely used theories in many areas of psychology and health sciences, few studies have tested this basic premise. Might causal influence also flow in a reverse-causal direction from intentions back to the base components? This causal sequence was tested and supported by a correlational study, a lab-based experiment, and a quasi-experimental field study. This demonstration of reverse-causal relations from intentions to the base components suggests that the theory of planned behavior should be modified to include reciprocal causal relations.
This study investigated whether or not visual prompts and human models influence compost‐supportive behavior by individuals in a cafeteria setting. Waste disposal behavior of cafeteria patrons was observed (N = 1,060) after the introduction of (1) pro‐composting signs, and (2) models who demonstrated appropriate composting behavior. Ideal composting significantly increased relative to the baseline with the introduction of the signs (from 12.5% to 20.5%). A further increase (to 42%) was observed when two (but not one) individuals modeled the behavior, and this increase was sustained even after the models were removed. Informational and normative influences may explain the increase in composting. This study further supports the use of prompts and models as a strategy for encouraging pro‐environmental behaviors.
The choice to conserve or be greedy in a commons dilemma may be influenced by the behavior of others and by pro-environmental values. Participants completed a measure of pro-environmental values one week before taking part in an Internet-based commons dilemma microworld consisting of a shared fishery with three computer-controlled virtual fishers whom participants believed to be real people. The three virtual fishers either behaved greedily (taking an unsustainable number of fish each season) or sustainably. In the sustainable scenario, virtual fishers left abundant numbers of fish for the participant and, thus, pro-environmental values were not related to harvesting decisions. However, in the greedy scenario, participants' pro-environmental values significantly predicted sustainable behavior, demonstrating that the influence of others' greediness may be overridden by pro-environmental values.
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