The primary drivers of private-sphere pro-environmental behaviour in five European countries during the Covid-19 pandemic

Iwińska, Katarzyna; Bieliński, Jacek; Calheiros, Cristina S. C.; Koutsouris, Alex; Kraszewska, M.; Mikusiński, Grzegorz

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.136330

Cited by 14 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 91 publications

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“…The age of the respondents was restricted to people who are potential targets in the university education system due to the goals of the founding project. The complete data (also including respondents from Portugal and the United Kingdom) were used in two other studies focused on pro‐environmental behaviour (Iwińska et al, 2023) and the use of green infrastructure (Elbakidze et al, submitted). In this study, we used data from three countries (Greece, Poland and Sweden) for which we were able to obtain relevant environmental variables and link them spatially with the reported postal codes of the respondents ( N = 1054; for more details, see Section 2.3).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this work, we focus on positive human-nature relationships, described as human-nature connectedness, and explore this phenomenon in three European countries-Sweden, Poland and Greece. Based on other studies (Barragan-Jason et al, 2022;Iwińska et al, 2023;Rosa et al, 2018;Whitburn et al, 2020), we assume that human--nature connectedness has the potential to strengthen pro-environmental behaviours at individual and societal levels and thereby assist in the quest for a more sustainable future.…”

Section: Human-nature Relationships and Pro-environmental Behaviourmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From many different scales available to measure HNC, we used five questions selected from the connectedness to nature scale provided by Mayer and Frantz (2004) and based on the level of acceptance of the respondent for the following statements: ( 1 2018), the above statements could be classified as encompassing the following types of HNC: philosophical (statement 1); emotional (statements 2 and 4); and cognitive (statements 3 and 5). Since this study was part of a larger project sharing different parts of the same questionnaire with limited capacity (see Iwińska et al, 2023), we decided to select those five questions from the original scale. As a response variable, we generated an additive index of HNC (hereafter NC-index) by summing up the points for each respondent assuming that low to high numbers correspond to a gradient in nature connectedness (from low to high).…”

Section: The Surveymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Elucidating human–nature connectedness in three EU countries: A pro‐environmental behaviour perspective

et al. 2023

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Strengthening positive human–nature relationships is seen as a way to more pro‐environmental behaviour and leads to a greater environmental sustainability. Therefore, understanding human–nature relationships has attracted increasing attention among researchers. Nature connectedness is a concept developed to measure such relationships. Since nature connectedness is complex and context dependent phenomenon, more research comparing sociocultural and environmental factors within societies in different countries is needed to understand its determinants. In this study, we explored how sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics and value orientation of respondents and environmental variables affected nature connectedness across different contexts in the European Union. We used 11 sociodemographic, socioeconomic and personal value factors from the computer‐assisted web interview (CAWI) and six environmental variables characterizing the local environments of 1054 respondents as independent variables to explain the nature connectedness of the respondents in Greece, Poland and Sweden. The individual level of nature connectedness (response variable) was expressed by an additive index (NC‐index) based on a 5‐item scale originating from CAWI. The general additive model was applied to link NC‐index to sociodemographic, value orientation and selected environmental variables. We found that the sociodemographic characteristics of the respondents and their value orientation were substantially more important in explaining the individual level of nature connectedness than environmental variables. The NC‐index was positively correlated with the frequency of visits to the natural environment and biospheric values of the respondents, and was higher for women and the most prosperous respondents. Moreover, we observed several country‐wise differences in associations between explanatory variables and NC‐index. For example, altruistic orientation was positively related to the level of nature connectedness only in Greece, but not in two other countries, and residence during childhood was important to nature connectedness only in Sweden. Our findings that some sociodemographic, socioeconomic and value orientation variables affect the level of individual nature connectedness across studied countries are encouraging. They indicate that some universally applied educational actions may elevate the level of nature connectedness. We argue that exploration of nature connectedness from a cross‐country perspective may provide significant insights into the environmental debate in national and international contexts. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Human-nature Relationships and Pro-environmental Behaviourmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Surveymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Elucidating human–nature connectedness in three EU countries: A pro‐environmental behaviour perspective

et al. 2023

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“…Connection to nature has been found to be linked to many things, including socioeconomics (Kleespies & Dierkes, 2023; Mikusiński et al., 2023), components of health and well‐being (Capaldi et al., 2014; Nisbet et al., 2020), interest in, knowledge of, and positive conservation attitudes towards, nature (Lim et al., 2022; Mikołajczak et al., 2023; Neurohr et al., 2023), and participation in nature‐based activities (Pocock et al., 2023). Their connection to nature can influence the benefit that people experience from interactions with nature, with these benefits being more pronounced when the connection is stronger (Chang et al., 2020; Iwińska et al., 2023; Oh et al., 2021; Rosa et al., 2018; Shwartz et al., 2023). It has also been shown that stronger connection to nature has a positive impact on pro‐environment, and more specifically, pro‐biodiversity behaviours, and hence may lead to increased protection and restoration of nature (Barragan‐Jason et al., 2023, 2022; Whitburn et al., 2020).…”

Section: Internal Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterizing personalized ecologies

Gaston

2024

Journal of Zoology

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People have unique sets of direct sensory interactions with wild species, which change through their days, weeks, seasons, and lifetimes. Despite having important influences on their health and well‐being and their attitudes towards nature, these personalized ecologies remain surprisingly little studied and are poorly understood. However, much can be inferred about personalized ecologies by considering them from first principles (largely macroecological), alongside insights from research into the design and effectiveness of biodiversity monitoring programmes, knowledge of how animals respond to people, and studies of human biology and demography. Here I first review how three major sets of drivers, opportunity, capability and motivation, shape people's personalized ecologies. Second, I then explore the implications of these mechanisms for how more passively and more actively practical improvements can be made in people's personalized ecologies. Particularly in light of the declines in the richness of these ecologies that are being experienced in much of the world (the so‐called ‘extinction of experience’), and the significant consequences, marked improvement in many people's interactions and experiences with nature may be key to the future of biodiversity.

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“…Poland is a country with <20,000 USD gross domestic product per capita. It has <10% usage of renewable energy sources (Iwińska et al, 2023). Poland is also still developing regarding environmental protection and resists the shift from conventional energy sources (Zuk, 2022).…”

Section: Pro-environmental Behaviors In Poland and Swedenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Future of nature, our future. A preregistered report on future time perspective, social value orientation, and pro-environmental outcomes based on data from Poland and Sweden

Nowakowska,

Rönnlund

2023

Front. Psychol.

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IntroductionThe objective of the study was to examine the role of social value orientation and future time perspective to account for individual differences in pro-environmental behaviors, intentions, and opinions about the link between pro-environmental action and pandemic threat (three separate models) in Polish and Swedish samples expected to differ in rate of pro-environmental behaviors (higher in Sweden). We hypothesized that for Poland, future time perspective would be linked to pro-environmental outcomes only when social value orientation is average or high. In contrast, for Sweden, we expected a significant link between these variables regardless of social value orientation.MethodsIn total, 301 (150 Polish, 151 Swedish) participants completed online surveys via Prolific.co research panel. We controlled for individualizing/binding moral foundations, present time perspectives, and selected demographic variables in the analyses.ResultsIn line with expectations, the individualizing moral foundations were a significant predictor across all three models. The data did not support our focal hypothesis regarding the interaction between future time perspective and social value orientation. For pro-environmental behaviors in the past 6 months, the future time perspective was a predictor only when social value orientation was low.DiscussionThe results suggest that when encouraging more competitive (compared to altruistic) people to behave in a green way, it might be crucial to underline the future consequences and benefits, consistent with the future time perspective. The pro-environmental campaigns could, therefore, highlight how green behavior may bring personal gains in the future, which are typically valued by individualistic people, such as savings or social status.

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The primary drivers of private-sphere pro-environmental behaviour in five European countries during the Covid-19 pandemic

Cited by 14 publications

References 91 publications

Elucidating human–nature connectedness in three EU countries: A pro‐environmental behaviour perspective

Elucidating human–nature connectedness in three EU countries: A pro‐environmental behaviour perspective

Characterizing personalized ecologies

Future of nature, our future. A preregistered report on future time perspective, social value orientation, and pro-environmental outcomes based on data from Poland and Sweden

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