Personal and social factors that influence pro-environmental concern and behaviour: A review

Abstract

We review the personal and social influences on pro-environmental concern and behaviour, with an emphasis on recent research. The number of these influences suggests that understanding pro-environmental concern and behaviour is far more complex than previously thought. The influences are grouped into 18 personal and social factors. The personal factors include childhood experience, knowledge and education, personality and self-construal, sense of control, values, political and world views, goals, felt responsibility, cognitive biases, place attachment, age, gender and chosen activities. The social factors include religion, urban-rural differences, norms, social class, proximity to problematic environmental sites and cultural and ethnic variations We also recognize that pro-environmental behaviour often is undertaken based on none of the above influences, but because individuals have non-environmental goals such as to save money or to improve their health. Finally, environmental outcomes that are a result of these influences undoubtedly are determined by combinations of the 18 categories. Therefore, a primary goal of researchers now should be to learn more about how these many influences moderate and mediate one another to determine pro-environmental behaviour.

ocial Well-Being and Pro-Environmental Behavior: A Cross-Lagged Panel Design

“…Finally, we did not measure potentially confounding variables that might relate to both of the measured variables. For instance, self-construal, locus of control, values, attitudes, goals, and felt responsibility are thought to exert an influence on pro-environmental behavior (Gifford & Nilsson, 2014). As the literature suggests, behavior is a complex factor and the attempt to explain pro-environmental behavior can also be quite complex.…”

“…As stated earlier, there is evidence that men are more likely to have high-level social well-being compared to women (Keyes, 2004) and that women tend to engage in more environmental behaviors than men (Gifford & Nilsson, 2014;Hunter et al, 2004;Schultz & Zelezny, 1999). However, it is unclear whether these gender differences might influence the hypothesized relationships.…”

“…Previous studies have shed light on a complex multifactorial process that includes personal and social influences on proenvironmental concern and behavior (Gifford & Nilsson, 2014). For instance, women tend to report stronger environmental concern and behaviors than men (Gifford & Nilsson, 2014;Hunter et al, 2004;Zelezny et al, 2000). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated that, in developed countries, lifestyle and behavioral changes could reduce energy demand by up to 20% in the short term 1 Author contact: gabriele.prati@unibo.it and 50% in the long term (IPCC, 2014).…”

“…In addition, a link between positive emotions and environmentally responsible behavior has been proposed (e.g., Cloutier et al, 2014;Helliwell, 2014;O'Brien, 2008). Previous studies have shown that psychological factors correlated to well-being such as self-construal, sense of control, values, world views, goals, and felt responsibility (Gifford & Nilsson, 2014). To our knowledge, no study has investigated the relationship between social well-being and conservation behavior.…”

Competition and Cooperation in Economics and Business

“…Home ownership is known to be a factor influencing recycling activities according to previous studies (Oskamp et al, 1991;Gifford et al, 2014). This is because people who live in their own house tend to be more 454 willing to take action to maintain the environmental sustainability since they would be more likely to settle in the region in comparison with people who live in rented/leased houses.…”