Motivating Pro-Environmental Behavior Through Emotions

Environmental activist Jane Goodall once said, “Only if we understand can we care. Only if we care will we help. Only if we help shall we be saved.” This perspective suggests the importance of coupling a range of variables—such as emotion, skills development, or self-efficacy—in order to influence environmental behavior. This study explored the relationship of knowledge and emotion with environmentally related behaviors. Specifically, the researchers asked: What role do emotions play in bringing about pro-environmental behaviors?

A representative sample of more than 1,000 undergraduates at Israel's Tel Hai Academic College participated in this study. Researchers asked the undergraduate students to complete an extensive survey, which began with items assessing the students' objective knowledge of environmental science, as well as how well the students felt they understood the causes of and solutions to environmental problems (or, their subjective knowledge). The survey's second section assessed the students' environmental emotions based on their self-reported connectedness to nature, concern for the biosphere, and commitment to the natural world. Finally, the survey asked about the students' pro-environmental behaviors, which the authors considered to be the study's dependent variable, or the desired outcome. Specifically, the authors asked the students to report their habits related to energy and water use, littering, green consumption, and recycling. The authors controlled for certain related variables—such as the students' gender, the social desirability of the behaviors, and social norms—to take into account the ways in which those variables might influence responses.

The authors found that neither objective nor subjective knowledge had statistically significant direct effects on environmental behavior. Subjective knowledge, however, did have a statistically significant indirect (or mediated) effect on behavior through its relationship with environmental emotions. These findings suggest that, while environmentally related knowledge might not influence environmental behavior on its own, it can be powerful when coupled with emotion. Importantly, the results also showed that not all knowledge has the same effect: subjective knowledge, or understanding the causes and consequences of environmental issues, has a greater effect on emotion and behavior than objective knowledge, or knowledge characterized by facts and terminology.

Overall, the findings supported the hypothesis that emotion is one of the factors that mediates environmental behavior. The results indicated that emotions were a significant and strong predictor of environmental behavior. This suggests that environmental programs might be more effective in influencing environmental behavior if, rather than focusing solely on environmental facts, they also emphasize an emotional connection to nature. This implies, further, that informal educational settings may play a valuable role as they may provide more opportunities for emotional connection. Moreover, these findings suggest the need for a possible paradigm shift in formal education toward a greater consideration of the affective, or emotional, realm.

To put this research into action, the authors suggested that practitioners and researchers carefully consider how best to engage emotions when framing and teaching about environmental issues. Knowing how students personalize environmental issues, as well as the factors that influence environmental emotions, is important for environmental educators, particularly if the educators wish to affect environmental behavior.