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Open AccessJournal ArticleDOI

Don't be satisfied, identify! Strengthening positive spillover by connecting pro-environmental behaviors to an “environmentalist” label

TLDR
This paper found that labeling those who perceived they performed many pro-environmental behaviors as "environmentalists" led to stronger environmental self-identity with no simultaneous reduction of guilt, increasing the total positive spillover.
About
This article is published in Journal of Environmental Psychology.The article was published on 2016-12-01 and is currently open access. It has received 99 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Spillover effect.

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Citations
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Strengthening and Implementing the Global Response

TL;DR: The feasibility of mitigation and adaptation options, and the enabling conditions for strengthening and implementing the systemic changes, are assessed in this article, where the authors consider the global response to warming of 1.5oC comprises transitions in land and ecosystem, energy, urban and infrastructure, and industrial systems.
Journal ArticleDOI

Moderating effects of pro-environmental self-identity on pro-environmental intentions and behaviour: A multi-behaviour study

TL;DR: This article used a within-persons approach to examine effects across behaviours and a longitudinal design to assess the moderating role of self-identity in the prediction of intentions and behaviours, controlling for past behaviour.
Journal ArticleDOI

Meta-analysis of pro-environmental behaviour spillover

TL;DR: This article examined evidence for spillover using a meta-analysis of interventions and found that positive spillover was most likely when interventions targeted intrinsic motivation and when PEB1 and PEB2 were similar.
Journal ArticleDOI

Measuring Values in Environmental Research : A Test of an Environmental Portrait Value Questionnaire

TL;DR: The Environmental-PVQ (E-VQ) – a PVQ variant of E-SVS – is tested and shown to be well-suited for measuring human values underlying environmental behaviors and beliefs.
Journal ArticleDOI

Climate-relevant behavioral spillover and the potential contribution of social practice theory

TL;DR: The literature is split between studies that provide evidence for positive spillover effects (where an intervention targeting an environmentally-conscious behaviour leads to an increase in another functionally related behaviour) and negative spillover effect (where a policy that encourages environmentally-aware behavior leads to a decrease of another functionally-related behaviour) as discussed by the authors.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models

TL;DR: An overview of simple and multiple mediation is provided and three approaches that can be used to investigate indirect processes, as well as methods for contrasting two or more mediators within a single model are explored.
Book ChapterDOI

Self-perception theory

TL;DR: Self-perception theory as discussed by the authors states that individuals come to know their own attitudes, emotions, and other internal states partially by inferring them from observations of their own overt behavior and/or the circumstances in which this behavior occurs.
Journal ArticleDOI

Twenty years after Hines, Hungerford, and Tomera: A new meta-analysis of psycho-social determinants of pro-environmental behaviour

TL;DR: In this paper, a meta-analysis on psycho-social determinants of pro-environmental behavior is presented, which is based on information from a total of 57 samples and finds mean correlations between psychosocial variables and proenvironmental behaviour similar to those reported by Hines et al.
Journal ArticleDOI

Going green to be seen: Status, reputation, and conspicuous conservation.

TL;DR: Supporting the notion that altruism signals one's willingness and ability to incur costs for others' benefit, status motives increased desire for green products when shopping in public and when green products cost more (but not less) than nongreen products.
Journal ArticleDOI

Green identity, green living? The role of pro-environmental self-identity in determining consistency across diverse pro-environmental behaviours

TL;DR: In this paper, the influence of pro-environmental self-identity on consistency across a range of behaviours was found to be a significant behavioural determinant over and above theory of planned behaviour variables for carbon offsetting behaviour.
Related Papers (5)
Frequently Asked Questions (15)
Q1. What have the authors contributed in "Don't be satisfied, identify! strengthening positive spillover by connecting pro-environmental behaviors to an "environmentalist" label" ?

This paper found that participants who perceived they performed many pro-environmental behaviors as environmentalists reported greater environmental self-identity strengthening their environmental attitudes, but simultaneously reported a reduction in guilt weakening their environmental attitude. 

More broadly, it offers an additional demonstration of how interpretation of their past behavior can alter the way the authors view ourselves and influence their future attitudes and behaviors ( Albarracín & McNatt, 2005 ; Bem, 1972 ; Burger & Caldwell, 2003 ; Cornelissen et al., 2007 ; 2008 ). Future spillover research should specifically examine if individuals differ in their guilt and identity responses to reminders of their past pro-environmental ( or environmentally harmful ) behaviors, and see if one of these responses is more widely found depending upon the population examined. Future work should examine how environmentalist labeling impacts spillover for different segments of the population. Future spillover research could address this issue through a repeated measures design, providing questionnaires both before and after participants perform a pro-environmental behavior or receive an environmentalist label, examining changes from baseline. 

Due to the lack of any negative spillover pathway, there was now an overall positive totalspillover effect from past behavior to concern about climate change, and a weaker positive but non-significant total spillover effect to policy support. 

Labeling people “environmentalists” after they remembered performing many past pro-environmental behaviors strengthened their environmental self-identity, which in turn increased both their concern about climate change and their support for different sustainability policies on campus. 

The shuttle will now drive from 8am-4am, and the route will be extended to take students to grocery stores, office appointments, and other residences within 2 miles of campus. 

Since the manipulation altered feelings of environmental self-identity and guilt in oppositedirections, it was possible that the manipulation still impacted climate change concern and policy support, but did so differently through these two mediators. 

research should investigate whether the label causes anger or reactance among political conservatives leading to negative spillover. 

pro-environmental behaviors may often be performed for non-environmental reasons such as to save money (e.g., Evans et al., 2013) or to gain status (e.g., Griskevicius, Tybur, & van den Bergh, 2010). 

Study 2 was specifically designed to examine the effect of labeling people“environmentalists” based upon their previous pro-environmental behaviors, providing people with a label to match their many behaviors and purposefully withholding that label from those with few behaviors. 

The studies also examined ifenvironmental self-identity and guilt serve as mediators that help explain why past behavior can spillover into people’s environmental attitudes. 

Depending upon the initial behavior itself, the situation in which the initial behavior was performed, and the measured spillover behavior or attitude, researchers may have been investigating a scenario in which the guilt and environmental self-identity pathways were weaker or stronger. 

Each of these behaviors decrease the amount of greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere, and limit a person’s individual impact on climate change. 

purposefully linking people’s past pro-environmental behaviors to an environmental self-identity may increase the likelihood of positive spillover. 

As hypothesized, the manipulation had a significant positive effect on environmental self-identity, and a positive but non-significant impact on guilt (see Figure 1). 

Taken together, these studies demonstrate that perception of past pro-environmentalbehavior can impact people’s environmental attitudes in terms of concern about specific issues such as climate change as well as support for sustainability policies that would directly impact their lives.