The power of environmental considerations to guide pro-environmental behavior among different people and in different contexts

Actively engaging in environmental conservation could contribute to solving various environmental issues and mitigate ongoing environmental crisis. People who care about environmental protection (strong environmental values), identify themselves as environmentally friendly (strong environmental self-identity) and feel morally obligated to contribute to conservation efforts (strong personal norms to act pro-environmentally) are more likely to engage in many environmentally friendly behaviors. Until recently, there had been limited evidence that these factors could effectively prompt people's actions beyond adult samples in Western Europe and the US. This dissertation shows that these factors do indeed explain various environmental conservation actions (e.g., recycling, environmental activism and environmentally friendly purchasing) among different people in a different context, in particular, among adults and adolescents and within the family context. Moreover, this thesis demonstrates that environmental values, self-identity and personal norms motivate people to conserve the environment in multiple ways in a country where other prominent social and economic issues exist, namely Lithuania. Interestingly, even though people had strong environmental values, self-identity and personal norms they did not engage in some environmental conservation actions. Suggesting that there might be a need to remove barriers to these actions by making behavior easier to perform.

Dissertation: https://hdl.handle.net/11370/5c72aa0f-69ca-4271-90e5-62bf751b817b