Why Do People Fail to Adopt Environmental Protective Behaviors? Toward a Taxonomy of Environmental Amotivation¹

Abstract

Individuals' reasons for their lack of motivation toward environmental protective behaviors were proposed: amotivation because of strategy, capacity, effort, and helplessness beliefs. Confirmatory factor analyses and correlations between the four types of amotivation and constructs related to the environment supported the validity of the constructs. A structural model in which helplessness beliefs could be predicted by the other sets of beliefs, and wherein strategy and ability beliefs resulted from effort beliefs, was tested. All estimated parameters were significant, with the exception of one link: amotivation because of effort beliefs did not display a significant relationship with helplessness beliefs. The importance of understanding why individuals may be amotivated and the strategies liable to help reduce their lack of motivation are discussed.

Integrating Factors that Predict Energy Conservation: The Theory of Planned Behavior and Beliefs about Climate Change

“…The reported findings are consistent with theoretical models of motivation for ERB in general (Pelletier, Dion, Tuson, & Green-Demers, 1999), and for actions to mitigate global warming specifically (Frantz & Mayer, 2009). According to these models, in order to engage in ERB, among other things, people must believe they have the ability and resources to engage in the relevant behavior, and as emphasized by Pelletier et al (1999), the ability to sustain the effort needed for the behavior. PBC is a measure of such beliefs and thus the predictive value of PBC supports these models.…”

“…Our attitude measure asked specifically about whether the conservation behavior was worthwhile in the effort to solve the problem of climate change. Our finding that this measure directly and indirectly predicted three types of energy conservation is consistent with proposals that in order to engage in ERB, people must believe that their efforts will be effective in reducing environmental problems (Frantz & Mayer, 2009;Pelletier et al 1999). …”

“…Given our findings, researchers should pursue interventions that convince people that individual attempts to conserve energy make a difference (as proposed by Franz & Mayer, 2009;Huebner & Lipsey, 1981;Pelletier et al, 1999). Such interventions might include specific feedback about the payoff of individual conservation attempts (e.g., percent change in personal co 2 emissions), or messages about the specific payoff of aggregate conservation attempts.…”

Who Cares about the Environmental Impact of Cars?

“…For example, it is possible that beyond differences in perceived environmental consequences (outcome expectancy), individuals high in CFC have greater selfefficacy with regard to the utilization of alternative transportation modalities (e.g., as a result of better planning strategies) as well as a stronger belief in their ability to exert effort in the pursuit of alternative transportation modalities (cf. Pelletier, Dion, Tuson, & Green-Demers, 1999).…”

Sustainable consumption and marketing

“…Nevertheless the changes in producer and consumer behaviour have made a negligible contribution to the actual sustainability of economic development (KPMG, 2012;Meadows & Randers, 2004;Turner, 2008). Awareness of the need for sustainable development has triggered changes in attitudes (Pelletier, Dion, Tuson, & Green-Demers, 1999;Roberts, 1996;Uusitalo, 1990), but not necessarily in behaviour (Boulstridge & Carrigan, 2000;Claudy, Peterson, & O'Driscoll, 2013;De Barcellos, Krystallis, de Melo Saab, Kügler, & Grunert, 2011;Moraes, Carrigan, & Szmigin, 2012;Papaoikonomou, Ryan, & Ginieis, 2011;Vermeir & Verbeke, 2006). The resulting gap between sustainable attitudes and actual behaviour shows that behaviour is the outcome of multiple and potentially conflicting attitudes and/or goals (Laran & Janiszewski, 2009).…”