Feel good, stay green: Positive affect promotes pro-environmental behaviors and mitigates compensatory “mental bookkeeping” effects
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In: Journal of Environmental Psychology, Vol. 56, 04.2018, p. 3-11.
Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Feel good, stay green
T2 - Positive affect promotes pro-environmental behaviors and mitigates compensatory “mental bookkeeping” effects
AU - Chatelain, Gilles
AU - Hille, Stefanie Lena
AU - Sander, David
AU - Patel, Martin
AU - Hahnel, Ulf Joachim Jonas
AU - Brosch, Tobias
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2018 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2018/4
Y1 - 2018/4
N2 - To counteract climate change people should adopt lifestyles consisting of numerous pro-environmental actions, across different domains, sustained over long time periods. Thus, it is important to understand how initial pro-environmental behaviors can impact the likelihood of subsequent behaviors. We tested the hypothesis that people use mental bookkeeping of past behaviors, allowing them to limit pro-environmental behaviors after having performed similar ones, and investigated the role of affect in this context. Participants read campaign messages framed affectively neutral (Experiment 1) or positive/negative (Experiment 2), followed by fictitious scenarios in which they could perform a second pro-environmental behavior after having shown a first one. Participants indicated a smaller willingness to act pro-environmentally if the behaviors were similar. Positive affect increased the likelihood of showing subsequent behaviors and mitigated negative spillover driven by behavioral similarity. However, the observed effect sizes are too small to be of practical relevance for developing efficient intervention strategies.
AB - To counteract climate change people should adopt lifestyles consisting of numerous pro-environmental actions, across different domains, sustained over long time periods. Thus, it is important to understand how initial pro-environmental behaviors can impact the likelihood of subsequent behaviors. We tested the hypothesis that people use mental bookkeeping of past behaviors, allowing them to limit pro-environmental behaviors after having performed similar ones, and investigated the role of affect in this context. Participants read campaign messages framed affectively neutral (Experiment 1) or positive/negative (Experiment 2), followed by fictitious scenarios in which they could perform a second pro-environmental behavior after having shown a first one. Participants indicated a smaller willingness to act pro-environmentally if the behaviors were similar. Positive affect increased the likelihood of showing subsequent behaviors and mitigated negative spillover driven by behavioral similarity. However, the observed effect sizes are too small to be of practical relevance for developing efficient intervention strategies.
KW - Affect
KW - Mental bookkeeping
KW - Pro-environmental behavior
KW - Spillover
KW - Psychology
KW - Sustainability sciences, Management & Economics
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85041824610&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jenvp.2018.02.002
DO - 10.1016/j.jenvp.2018.02.002
M3 - Journal articles
AN - SCOPUS:85041824610
VL - 56
SP - 3
EP - 11
JO - Journal of Environmental Psychology
JF - Journal of Environmental Psychology
SN - 0272-4944
ER -