Values, identity and pro-environmental behaviour

By Birgitta Gatersleben, Niamh Murtagh, W. Abrahamse. 2014

466 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The importance of understanding and promoting pro-environmental behaviour among individual consumers in modern Western Societies is generally accepted. Attitudes and attitude change are often examined to help reach this goal. But although attitudes are relatively good predictors of behaviour and are relatively easy to change they only help explain specific behaviours. More stable individual factors such as values and identities may affect a wider range of behaviours. In particular factors which are important to the self are likely to influence behaviour across contexts and situations. This paper examines the role of values and identities in explaining individual pro-environmental behaviours. Secondary analyses were conducted on data from three studies on UK residents, with a total of 2694 participants. Values and identities were good predictors of pro-environmental behaviour in each study and identities explain pro-environmental behaviours over and above specific attitudes. The link between values and behaviours was fully mediated by identities in two studies and partially mediated in one study supporting the idea that identities may be broader concepts which incorporate values. The findings lend support for the concept of identity campaigning to promote sustainable behaviour. Moreover, it suggests fruitful future research directions which should explore the development and maintenance of identities.

Subfields: Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law, Marketing, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6efaa937b615f9c6117609dea57444c5f5ed5abb

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Citations in the corpus

Listen to others or yourself? The role of personal norms on the effectiveness of social norm interventions to change pro-environmental behavior (2021, background): “These typical ‘private sphere behaviors ’ include much behavioral freedom, and therefore one ’ s own moral standards as presented by personal norms might become even more important to guide behavior (cf., Gatersleben, Murtagh, & Abrahamse, 2014).”
Advancing sustainable consumption in the UK and China: the mediating effect of pro-environmental self-identity (2015, unknown): “A number of recent articles have provided tentative support for the mediating role of pro-environmental self-identity between values, environmental preferences and behaviour (Gatersleben, et al., 2012; van der Werff, et al., 2013b; Whitmarsh & O'Neill, 2010).”
Ethical Leadership and Employee Green Behavior: A Multilevel Moderated Mediation Analysis (2020, methodology): “Environmental awareness was measured by making use of the 12-item scale ranging from 1 = low to 5 = high developed by Gatersleben [66].”
Follow the signal : When past pro-environmental actions signal who you are (2014, background): “Yet, environmental self-identity only seemed to be malleable to some extent, as it also depends on values, which are considered to be relatively stable (Gatersleben et al., 2012; Van der Werff et al., 2013, 2014).”
On the Determinants of Pro-Environmental Behavior: A Literature Review and Guide for the Empirical Economist (2019, background): “Identity mediates the relationship between values and PEB (Gatersleben et al., 2014) and values impact identity, which in turn impacts consumer intentions (Barbarossa et al.”
The value of environmental self-identity: The relationship between biospheric values, environmental self-identity and environmental preferences, intentions and behaviour (2013, background): “…to ecoshopping, waste reduction, water savings, and domestic energy conservation (Whitmarsh & O’Neill, 2010), while the environmental self-identity was related to various pro-environmental behaviours, recycling, buying fair trade products and not flying on holiday (Gatersleben et al., 2012).”
The interplay among environmental attitudes, pro-environmental behavior, social identity, and pro-environmental institutional climate. A longitudinal study (2017, background): “In line with this theory, there is evidence that social identity influences pro-environmental behavior (e.g. Gatersleben, Murtagh, and Abrahamse 2012; Dresner et al. 2015) and environmental attitudes (Bonaiuto, Breakwell, and Cano 1996; Bonaiuto et al. 2002; Van der Werff, Steg, and Keizer 2014).”