The belief-action gap in environmental psychology: How wide? How irrational?

Abstract

The belief-action gap was originally conceptualized by psychologists who aimed to ground behaviour in beliefs but found that their models had little predictive value. The recurrent use of this concept often comes with the assumption that human behaviour is somewhat irrational or weirdly misaligned with their beliefs. This gap is particularly striking in the environmental domain, where many people seemingly think one way but act another. In this chapter, we review a number of factors that hinder general beliefs from translating into actual behaviours. We emphasize the existence of measurement issues, information deficits about the exact impact of one’s actions, structural factors and psychological factors that together impact the robustness of the association between beliefs and actions. In particular, socio-cognitive factors have a massive impact on people’s decisions to act in ways that are aligned with their deep- seated beliefs. Once all these factors are properly taken into account, it becomes clear that the belief-action gap is not a token of human irrationality but should in fact be expected.

Psychological barriers moderate the attitude-behavior gap for climate change

“…This gap has been named the attitude-behavior gap or the value-action gap . Terms such as belief-action gap , knowledge-action gap , and attitude-behavior inconsistency have also been employed [ 18 ]. Critically, not all pro-environmental actions are similarly affected by attitudes [ 14 ].…”

“…The weak association between attitudes and behavior could be partially explained by measurement inadequacies such as social desirability biases, temporal gaps, and faulty instruments [ 18 ]. The literature has also increasingly pointed to the relevance of assessing structural barriers (i.e., external systemic or infrastructure barriers) such as the accessibility and condition of sustainable alternatives, which can also hinder action-taking by aware and concerned individuals.…”

Human-environment feedback and the consistency of proenvironmental behaviour

“…Given the predicted importance of the individual sensitivity to the environment, τ , and environmental impact differential, l A − l B , the outcome (consistency of the active behaviour) is likely to be influenced by inter-individual heterogeneity in these two parameters. It is known that individuals can differ greatly in their perception and assessment of the state of degradation of their environment, due to differences in social origin, education, or information [17, 16]; and in their potential proenvironmental response to perceived environmental degradation [16]. This heterogeneity could result in wide variation of both τ and l A − l B among individuals, with contrasted personalities such as being little responsive and acting weakly (small τ and l A − l B ), or responding fast and strongly (large τ and l A − l B ).…”

Political values, patriotism, institutional trust and connectedness to nature predict environmental attitudes and pro-environmental behaviour (Los valores políticos, el patriotismo, la confianza en las instituciones y la conexión con la naturaleza predicen las actitudes y la conducta proambientales)

“…E.g., what can be collected separately, what cannot, especially where information on recycling is not widespread (Shabanova, 2019). Overall, this finding may demonstrate that being informed is not what matters most for engaging in pro-environmental behaviours (Grandin et al, 2021). In addition to information, many other conditions matter, such as external (e.g., social, personal and policy-related) or internal (e.g., motivation).…”

“…Es decir, qué se puede tirar a la basura por separado y qué no, especialmente en lugares en los que el reciclaje no está extendido (Shabanova, 2019). En general, este resultado puede demostrar que estar informado no es lo que más importa para llevar a cabo conductas proambientales (Grandin et al, 2021). Además de la información, muchas otras cuestiones son importantes, como las externas (e.g., sociales, personales y relativas a las políticas) o internas (e.g., motivación).…”