Rights statement: Copyright © 2017 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH
Accepted author manuscript, 1.3 MB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY-NC-ND: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Mapping our underlying cognitions and emotions about good environmental behavior
T2 - why we fail to act despite our best intentions
AU - Power, Nicola
AU - Beattie, Geoff
AU - McGuire, Laura
N1 - Copyright © 2017 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH
PY - 2017/3/1
Y1 - 2017/3/1
N2 - Despite the widespread recognition of climate change as the single biggest global threat, the willingness of people to change their behaviour to mitigate its effects is limited. Past research, often focussing on specific categories of behaviour, has highlighted a very significant gap between people’s intentions to behave more sustainably and their actual behaviour. This paper presents a new approach to this issue, by using more open-ended questions to map a much broader range of cognitions and emotions about good environmental behaviour. Two key findings emerged. Firstly, participants were aware of the contradiction between their level of concern about the environment and their willingness to act in more sustainable ways. The qualitative analysis further revealed that this discrepancy often hinged on a lack of knowledge about how to act more sustainably; the analysis also revealed a desire for more information about genuinely green behaviour. Secondly, pro-environmental behaviour was often conceptualised by participants in essentially ‘social’ terms; anticipated emotions relating to sustainable/non-sustainable behaviour were as closely tied to the behaviour of one’s peers as to one’s own behaviour. This finding suggests that we must highlight the social dimension in any interventions to increase sustainable behaviours amongst the public.
AB - Despite the widespread recognition of climate change as the single biggest global threat, the willingness of people to change their behaviour to mitigate its effects is limited. Past research, often focussing on specific categories of behaviour, has highlighted a very significant gap between people’s intentions to behave more sustainably and their actual behaviour. This paper presents a new approach to this issue, by using more open-ended questions to map a much broader range of cognitions and emotions about good environmental behaviour. Two key findings emerged. Firstly, participants were aware of the contradiction between their level of concern about the environment and their willingness to act in more sustainable ways. The qualitative analysis further revealed that this discrepancy often hinged on a lack of knowledge about how to act more sustainably; the analysis also revealed a desire for more information about genuinely green behaviour. Secondly, pro-environmental behaviour was often conceptualised by participants in essentially ‘social’ terms; anticipated emotions relating to sustainable/non-sustainable behaviour were as closely tied to the behaviour of one’s peers as to one’s own behaviour. This finding suggests that we must highlight the social dimension in any interventions to increase sustainable behaviours amongst the public.
KW - climate change
KW - sustainability
KW - value-action gap
KW - environmental behavior
KW - cognition
KW - emotions
U2 - 10.1515/sem-2016-0035
DO - 10.1515/sem-2016-0035
M3 - Journal article
VL - 2017
SP - 193
EP - 234
JO - Semiotica
JF - Semiotica
SN - 0037-1998
IS - 215
ER -