Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 56, No. 3, 2000, pp.407–424
Toward a Coherent Theory of Environmentally Significant Behavior
久旱逢甘雨Paul C. Sternlinkshare
National Rearch Council
This article develops a conceptual framework for advancing theories of environ-mentally significant individual behavior and reports on the attempts of the author’s rearch group and others to develop such a theory.It discuss defini-tions of environmentally significant behavior;classifies the behaviors and their caus;asss theories of environmentalism,focusing especially on value-belief-norm theory;evaluates the relationship between environmental concern and behavior;and summarizes evidence on the factors that determine environmentally significant behaviors and that can effectively alter them.The article concludes by prenting some major propositions supported by available rearch and some principles for guiding future rearch and informing the design of behavioral programs for environmental protection.
Recent developments in theory and rearch give hope for building the under-standing needed to effec
tively alter human behaviors that contribute to environ-mental problems.This article develops a conceptual framework for the theory of environmentally significant individual behavior,reports on developments toward such a theory,and address five issues critical to building a theory that can inform efforts to promote proenvironmental behavior.
*This rearch was supported in part by the U.S.Environmental Protection Agency grant,“The Social Psychology of Stated Preferences,”and by National Science Foundation grants SES9211591 and9224036to George Mason University.I thank my colleagues Gregory Guagnano,Linda Kalof,and especially Thomas Dietz and Gerald Gardner for their collaboration,support,and criticism in our collective effort to theorize about environmental concern and behavior.Correspondence concerning this article should be addresd to Paul C.Stern,National Rearch Council,2101Constitution Ave., N.W. (HA-172), Washington DC 20418 [e-mail: pstern@nas.edu].
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408Stern Defining Environmentally Significant Behavior Environmentally significant behavior can reasonably be defined by its impact: the extent to which it changes the availability of materials or ene
rgy from the environment or alters the structure and dynamics of ecosystems or the biosphere itlf(e Stern,1997).Some behavior,such as clearing forest or disposing of houhold waste,directly or proximally caus environmental change(Stern, Young,&Druckman,1992).Other behavior is environmentally significant indi-rectly,by shaping the context in which choices are made that directly cau environmental ,Rosa&Dietz,1998;Vayda,1988).For example, behaviors that affect international development policies,commodity prices on world markets,and national environmental and tax policies can have greater envi-ronmental impact indirectly than behaviors that directly change the environment.
schifferThrough human history,environmental impact has largely been a by-product of human desires for physical comfort,mobility,relief from labor,enjoyment, power,status,personal curity,maintenance of tradition and family,and so forth, and of the organizations and technologies humanity has created to meet the desires.Only relatively recently has environmental protection become an impor-tant consideration in human decision making.This development has given envi-ronmentally significant behavior a cond meaning.It can now be defined from the actor’s standpoint as behavior that is undertaken with the intention to change (normally,to benefit)the environment.This intent-oriented definition is not the same as the impact-oriented one in two important ways:It highlights environmen-t
al intent as an independent cau of behavior,and it highlights the possibility that environmental intent may fail to result in environmental impact.For example, many people in the United States believe that avoiding the u of spray cans pro-tects the ozone layer,even though ozone-destroying substances have been banned from spray cans for two decades.The possible discrepancy between environmental intent and environmental impact rais important rearch questions about the nature and determinants of people’s beliefs about the environmental significance of behaviors.
Both definitions of environmentally significant behavior are important for rearch but for different purpos.It is necessary to adopt an impact-oriented definition to identify and target behaviors that can make a large difference to the environment(Stern&Gardner,1981a).This focus is critical for making rearch uful.It is necessary to adopt an intent-oriented definition that focus on people’s beliefs,motives,and so forth in order to understand and change the target behaviors.
Theory of Environmentally Significant Behavior409
Types of Environmentally Significant Behavior
Much early rearch on proenvironmental behavior presumed it to be a uni-tary,undifferentiated class.More recently it has become clear that there are veral distinct types of environmentally signif
everyone是什么意思icant behavior and that different combina-tions of causal factors determine the different types.
Environmental Activism
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Committed environmental ,active involvement in environmen-tal organizations and demonstrations)is a major focus of rearch on social move-ment participation.This rearch provides detailed analysis of the“recruitment”process through which individuals become activists(McAdam,McCarthy,&Zald, 1988).
Nonactivist Behaviors in the Public Sphere
Recently,the social movement literature has pointed to nonactivists’support of movement objectives as another important class of behavior(Zald,1992).Pub-lic opinion rearchers and political scientists sometimes examine such behavior, but relatively little rearch has been done to classify the behaviors into coherent subtypes.It ems reasonable as a first approximation to distinguish between more active kinds of environmental ,petitioning on environmental issues,joining and contributing to environmental organizations)and support or acceptance of public ,stated approval of environmental regulations, willingness to pay higher taxes for environmental protection).My colleagues and I have found empirical support for distinguishing the
types from each other and from activism(Dietz,Stern,&Guagnano,1998;Stern,Dietz,Abel,Guagnano,& Kalof,1999).Although the behaviors affect the environment only indirectly,by influencing public policies,the effects may be large,becau public policies can change the behaviors of many people and organizations at once.An important fea-ture of public-sphere behaviors,including activism,is that environmental concerns are within awareness and may therefore be influential.
Private-Sphere Environmentalism
Consumer rearchers and psychologists have focud mainly on behaviors in the private sphere:the purcha,u,and disposal of personal and houhold prod-ucts that have environmental impact.It is uful to subdivide the according to the type of decision they involve:the purcha of major houhold goods and rvices that are environmentally significant in their ,automobiles,energy for the home,recreational travel),the u and maintenance of environmentally
410Stern
important ,home heating and cooling systems),houhold waste dis-posal,and“green”cons
umerism(purchasing practices that consider the environ-mental impact of production process,for example,purchasing recycled products and organically grown foods).Making such distinctions has revealed that some types of choice,such as infrequent decisions to purcha automobiles and major houhold appliances,tend to have much greater environmental impact than others,such as changes in the level of u of the same equipment:the distinction between efficiency and curtailment behaviors(Stern&Gardner,1981a,1981b). Private-sphere behaviors may also form coherent clusters ,Bratt, 1999a),and different types of private-sphere behavior may have different ,Black,Stern,&Elworth,1985).Private-sphere behaviors are unlike public-sphere environmentalism in that they have direct environmental con-quences.The environmental impact of any individual’s personal behavior,how-ever,is small.Such individual behaviors have environmentally significant impact only in the aggregate, when many people independently do the same things.
Other Environmentally Significant Behaviors
Individuals may significantly affect the environment through other behaviors, such as influencing the actions of organizations to which they belong.For example, engineers may design manufactured products in more or less environmentally benign ways,bankers and developers may u or ignore en
vironmental criteria in their decisions,and maintenance workers’actions may reduce or increa the pol-lution produced by manufacturing plants or commercial buildings.Such behaviors can have great environmental impact becau organizational actions are the largest direct sources of many environmental problems(Stern&Gardner,1981a,1981b; Stern,2000).The determinants of individual behavior within organizations are likely to be different from tho of political or houhold behaviors.
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Evidence for Distinguishing Major Behavioral Types
Rearch my colleagues and I have conducted suggests that this distinction among behavioral types is not only conceptually coherent but statistically reliable and psychologically meaningful.For instance,a factor analysis of the behavioral items in the environment module of the1993General Social Survey revealed a three-factor solution(Dietz et al.,1998).One factor included four private-ctor houhold ,buying organic produce,sorting houhold waste for recycling);a cond included two environmental citizenship behaviors(signing a petition and belonging to an environmental group);and the third included three items indicating willingness to make personal financial sacrifices for environmen-tal goals,which asss policy support.A different pattern of social-psychological
Theory of Environmentally Significant Behavior411 and socio-demographic predictors was associated with each of the behavioral types,and even the two citizenship behaviors had quite different ts of predictors.
My colleagues and I had similar results using data from a1994national envi-ronmental survey(Stern et al.,1999).Factor analysis of17items measuring lf-reported behaviors and behavioral intentions again revealed three factors: consumer ,buying organic produce,avoiding purchas from com-panies that harm the environment);environmental ,voting,writing to government officials);and policy support,expresd as willingness to sacrifice economically to protect the ,by paying much higher taxes or prices).Self-reported participation in environmental demonstrations and protests, presumably a measure of committed activism,did not load on any of the above three factors.Each of the factors was predicted by a different pattern of norms, beliefs, and values, and activism had yet a different t of predictors.
The Determinants of Environmentalism
Environmentalism may be defined behaviorally as the propensity to take actions with proenvironmental intent.Some theories treat environmentalism as a matter of worldview.Perhaps the 车身划痕修复方法
most prominent example in social psychology is the idea that it flows from adopting a New Environmental(or Ecological)Para-digm,within which human activity and a fragile biosphere are en as inextricably interconnected(Dunlap,Van Liere,Mertig,&Jones,this issue).Another worldview theory explains environmentalism in terms of an egalitarian“cultural bias”or“orienting disposition”(Dake,1991;Douglas&Wildavsky,1982;Steg& Sievers,2000).Recently,some rearchers have begun to explore affective influ-ences on environmental concern and behavior,including sympathy for others (Allen&Ferrand,1999),“emotional affinity”toward nature(Kals,Schumacher,& Montada, 1999), and empathy with wild animals (Schultz, this issue).
Some theories look to values as the basis of environmentalism.Inglehart (1990)suggests that it is an expression of postmaterialist values of quality of life and lf-expression that emerge as a result of increasing affluence and curity in the developed countries.Some accounts emphasize religious values,arguing either that certain Judaeo-Christian beliefs predispo adherents to devalue the environ-ment(Schultz,Zelezny,&Dalrymple,2000;White,1967)or that beliefs that the environment is sacred enhance environmental ,Dietz et al.,1998; Greeley,1993;Kempton,Boster,&Hartley,1995).Others have linked environ-mental concern and behavior to general theories of ,Schwartz,1994) and have found that values tho that foc
us concern beyond a person’s immediate social circle(values called lf-transcendent or altruistic)are stronger among peo-ple who engage in proenvironmental ,Dietz et al.,1998;Karp,1996; Stern&Dietz,1994;Stern,Dietz,Kalof,&Guagnano,1995).A related line of rearch finds greater evidence of environmental concern among individuals withforthright
