The Effects of Temporal Discounting on Perceived Seriousness of Environmental Behavior: Exploring the Moderator Role of Consumer Attitudes Regarding Green Purchasing

Emerging issues related to climate change have been explored in recent years as the need for appropriate behavioral solutions grows. However, one of the main problems raised and yet to be solved is the challenge to encourage people to act against climate change. One of the identified barriers is the mental indirect link between the influence of human activities in the present and their future consequences. This psychological distance could be investigated by examining temporal discounting—the overvaluation of benefits in the present compared to benefits in the future—and its relationship to environmental behavior on consumers’ attitudes toward green purchasing. In this research, we conducted a survey (n = 337) to examine the relationship between temporal discounting and perceived seriousness of environmental behavior and investigated the moderating effect of consumers’ attitudes regarding green purchasing. The results show a moderating effect of these consumers’ attitudes on the relationship between temporal discounting and perceived seriousness of environmental behavior. These findings make important contributions to environmental policies by rethinking and adapting new solutions that promote behavioral change, namely by exploring psychological variables and identifying green consumption profiles.

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Pro-environmental behaviors correlate with delay discounting

10.31235/osf.io/db2gy ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Shahabeddin Sahraeian ◽

Iman Khan Ahmadi ◽

Hashem Sadeghiyeh

Keyword(s):

Delay Discounting ◽

Environmental Behavior ◽

Pearson Correlation ◽

Temporal Discounting ◽

Mechanical Turk ◽

Amazon Mechanical Turk ◽

Positive Trend ◽

Environmental Behaviors ◽

Demographic Traits ◽

The Relationship

A total of 138 participants were recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk to evaluate the relationship between temporal discounting and pro-environmental behavior. Pro-environmental behavior was assessed by using a modified version of Whitmarsh and O'Neill survey. Temporal discounting was assessed by Kirby's 27-item delay-discounting measure. The results showed a positive trend correlation between pro-environmental behavior and temporal discounting; i.e. the more discounting of the future was correlated with less pro-environmental behavior. This trend became much more significant when we just analyzed those participants who answered "Yes" to the question "Do you think climate change is something that is affecting or is going to affect you, personally?" to which 98 out of 138 participants of our study answered "yes". For this upper %70 of participants the Pearson correlation coefficient was r = 0.28; p = 0.006. We also analyzed different demographic traits to see whether there is any difference between sub-groups regarding differential pro-environmental behaviors. Two features turned out to be highly predictive of the pro-environmental behavior: education and marriage. Married and higher educated tend to act more pro-environmentally than single and lower educated.

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Moving From Indifference to Responsibility: Reframing Environmental Behavior Among College Students in Israel

Frontiers in Climate ◽

10.3389/fclim.2021.776930 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 3 ◽

Author(s):

Keren Dopelt ◽

Ori Loren ◽

Gal Gapich ◽

Nadav Davidovitch

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Environmental Behavior ◽

Cross Sectional Study ◽

Online Questionnaire ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Individual Contributions ◽

Level Of Knowledge ◽

And Behavior ◽

The Impact ◽

The Relationship

Objectives: To examine the level of knowledge, attitudes, and behavior of students on topics related to climate change and the relationship between those variables.Methods: A cross-sectional study using an online questionnaire, including 704 students. Statistical analysis was performed using Pearson correlations, t-tests, one-way ANOVA, and regression models.Results: Only 42% of participants understood what climate change meant, and 14% indicated their indifference toward it. Students had a moderate level of knowledge about the impact of climate change, and their attitudes were moderately positive, yet they demonstrated poor environmental behavior. We found positive relationships between variables, with attitudes mediating the relationship between knowledge and behavior. Women demonstrated more pro-environmental behavior than men.Conclusions: Our results highlight the importance of raising awareness of climate change's effects and its mitigation. Pro-environmental behavior requires long-term thinking and priorities for the future rather than benefits in the present. Future environmental education campaigns should emphasize individual contributions to environmental impacts in the context of climate change, as well as environmentally relevant consumption habits. We suggest including an introductory reflective and emancipatory course in environmental studies in all departments, emphasizing public health aspects.

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Corporate Social Responsibility and Pro-Environmental Behavior of the Individuals from the Perspective of Protection Motivation Theory

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su132313406 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (23) ◽

pp. 13406

Author(s):

Ghulam Jilani ◽

Guangqin Yang ◽

Irfan Siddique

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Higher Education ◽

Corporate Social Responsibility ◽

Social Responsibility ◽

University Students ◽

Environmental Behavior ◽

Equation Modeling ◽

Corporate Social ◽

The Relationship ◽

Industrial Context

Several research studies have investigated the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and pro-environmental behavior of individuals in the industrial context (considering the employees as individuals) while ignoring the non-industrial context. Climate change and related issues associated with the interaction of humans with the environment are of great importance in today’s context, hence, it is equally important to test such a relationship in a non-industrial context. Therefore, the current study aims to investigate the relationship between CSR and pro-environmental behavior of students (SPEB) in the higher education sector of Pakistan. Given that university students are more inclined to act pro-environmentally, as they partake in different climate change activities and are part of the debate on the global environmental crisis, considering this sector to promote SPEB is of the utmost importance. The current study also proposes emotional affinity towards students (EATN) as a mediator between the proposed relationship. The current study data were collected from university students (n = 656) studying in different universities of Pakistan. The results were validated by employing the structural equation modeling technique (SEM). The results confirmed that there exists a positive association between CSR perception of a university and SPEB, and EATN partially mediates this relationship. The findings of the current study will be helpful to the higher education policymakers in Pakistan to mitigate the country’s environmental footprint by promoting the sustainable behavior of students as an outcome of CSR. Moreover, these findings will also be helpful to the academia for policymaking pertinent to educational governance.

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