Pro-environmental behaviors through the lens of the theory of planned behavior: A scoping review

By A. Yuriev, Mehdi Dahmen, Pascal Paillé, Olivier Boiral, L. Guillaumie. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 2020

798 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract The theory of planned behavior (TPB) allows researchers to identify the determinants of environmental behavior and subsequently target these factors in interventions. Multiple studies on conservation behaviors have recently applied this theoretical framework in both organizational and domestic settings. To shed more light on how the TPB was used in these studies, we conducted a literature review with the following objectives: 1) explore which individual green behaviors were studied though the lens of the TPB, 2) understand how scholars have used the theory and what variance the theory has helped to explain, and 3) formulate recommendations, if necessary, for improving the use of the theory. The review of the results from 126 publications demonstrated that the majority of scholars tend to overlook the importance of identifying and evaluating indirect variables (beliefs) that affect behaviors. More than half of the analyzed articles did not report the amount of explained variance, which undermines the principal strength of the theory. Scholars could obtain more substantial and consistent results if the guidelines regarding the application of the theory are consistently respected. More specifically, four aspects should be considered in the application of the theory: choice of framework, decision to extend the original model, methodology, and results. To help scholars overcome these commonly encountered problems, this article suggests a roadmap with several guiding questions and possible answers.

Subfields: Building and Construction, Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law, Marketing

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d39d6b2db75d70cb5519f0fb42e37ad5c6386593

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In Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

1. Amandeep Dhir
2. Marc Arul Weissmann
3. Weng Marc Lim

In Marketing

1. Puneet Kaur
2. Amandeep Dhir
3. Marc Arul Weissmann
4. Weng Marc Lim
5. Lobel Trong Thuy Tran
6. Shalini Talwar

Citations in the corpus

• Drivers of food waste reduction behaviour in the household context (2021, background): “However, recent studies have noted that TPB, which adopts a cognitive approach to explore human behaviours (Ajzen, 2001), offers a lower explanatory power in the food waste context, mainly due to the interdisciplinary nature of such a topic (Heidari et al., 2019; Yuriev et al., 2020).”
• Toward a theory of behavioral control (2021, background): “…the intention is to perform a particular behavior that does not translate into actual performance of that behavior; this is commonly described as the intention-behavior gap (ElHaffar et al., 2020; Nguyen et al., 2019; Sheeran, 2002; Sheeran et al., 2003; Sheeran & Webb, 2016; Yuriev et al., 2020).”