When do values promote pro-environmental behaviors? Multilevel evidence on the self-expression hypothesis (2023)

Introduction

People often differ in their amount of effort in protecting the environment. Researchers have proposed that personal values can explain people's pro-environmental actions (or lack thereof) (e.g., de Groot & Steg, 2008; Schultz & Zelezny, 1999), in which these actions are more aligned with values that emphasize the welfare of the collective (e.g., self-transcendence values; Schultz et al., 2005) and nature (e.g., biospheric value; de Groot & Steg, 2008). However, studies have also revealed that people do not always act according to their values (e.g., Lӧ;nnqvist, Leikas, Paunonen, Nissinen, & Verkasalo 2006). People may fail to take pro-environmental actions, even though they endorse pro-environmental value. It thus poses the question as to under what circumstances personal values would promote pro-environmental behaviors.

The present investigation adopts a person-context interaction approach to answer this question. I contend that individuals' engagement in pro-environmental behaviors is an expression of personal values (Bardi & Schwartz, 2003). However, individuals are not always free to express themselves; self-expression depends on societal contexts (Chan, Pong, & Tam, 2019). Accordingly, I propose that the association between personal values and pro-environmental behaviors would depend on how much the societal context allows individuals to freely express their values. I hypothesize that the values-behaviors association is stronger in contexts wherein self-expression is encouraged. With two international survey datasets, I found supporting evidence for this hypothesis. These findings elucidate when individuals’ values would guide their pro-environmental behaviors and highlight the significance of considering sociocultural contexts in the study of the relationship between values and environment-related constructs. In the following, I first review the association between values and pro-environmental behaviors and then introduce the self-expression hypothesis.

Values are trans-situational goals that guide people's evaluation of entities (e.g., person, object, social events) and selection of behaviors (Rohan, 2000; Schwartz, 1992). In the quest for universal human values, Schwartz (1992, 1994) identified two major dimensions of value types: Self-transcendence versus self-enhancement and openness to change versus conservation. The first dimension concerns the conflict between collective welfare and personal interest. Self-transcendence values refer to individuals' striving for promoting the welfare of others, the equality of in-group and outgroup people, and the protection of the natural environment, whereas self-enhancement values refer to individuals' pursuit of power and personal achievement. The second dimension concerns the conflict between independence and obedience. Openness-to-change values refer to individuals' emphasis on novelty and self-direction, whereas conservation values refer to their emphasis on maintaining social order, following traditions, and seeking stability. These two dimensions of value types have been validated in more than 80 cultural groups with diverse samples and measures (Schwartz, 2012). Empirical findings also support the robustness of these four types of values in explaining human behaviors in various domains (e.g., consumer behavior, political orientation, and voting; for a review, see Roccas & Sagiv, 2010).

In the study of pro-environmental behavior, researchers have primarily focused on the self-transcendence versus self-enhancement dimension (e.g., Schultz et al., 2005). Self-transcendence values inherently involve individuals’ emphasis on the welfare of the natural environment (Dietz, Fitzgerald, & Shwom, 2005). Further, as environmental protection often involves the sacrifice of immediate personal interest for the long-term benefit of the collective, pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors are more aligned with self-transcendence values than with self-enhancement values (Stern, Dietz, & Kalof, 1993). For example, participation in a pro-environmental campaign often offers no direct benefit to an individual (see Stern, 2000). Studies have found empirical support to the positive association between self-transcendence values and pro-environmental behaviors and the negative association between self-enhancement values and pro-environmental behaviors (e.g., Karp, 1996; Milfont, Sibley, & Duckitt, 2010; Nordlund & Garvill, 2002; Schultz et al., 2005). For example, Barber, Bishop, and Gruen (2014) found that participants who strongly endorsed self-transcendence (self-enhancement) values were more (less) willing to spend money on pro-environmental goods.

Researchers also commonly agree that values, on average, have a weak effect on pro-environmental behaviors (e.g., Schultz et al., 2005). Personal values are not the only determinant of pro-environmental behaviors. Social and situational factors (e.g., social norms, structural constraints) are also influential (Gifford, 2011; Steg & Vlek, 2009). When individuals consider these sets of factors to be more important than their values, they may base their behavioral decision on these factors instead (see Roccas & Sagiv, 2010). For example, based on four studies, Klöckner (2013) reported that the pooled correlation between self-transcendence values and pro-environmental behaviors was only 0.06 (ranging from -.05 to .17), and the pooled correlation between self-enhancement values and pro-environmental behaviors was only 0.01 (ranging from -.05 to .07).

Why do values sometimes have a weaker influence on behaviors? Although values are guiding principles of people's life, people do not always consider these principles to be relevant to a situation (Maio, 2010). Values should have a weaker influence on people's behaviors when individuals consider it to be irrelevant. For example, while some people may apply the equality principle to evaluate gender equality, they may not apply the same principle to understand the equality related to handedness (Maio, Hahn, Frost, & Cheung, 2009). When individuals do not consider their values to be relevant, they may bypass the value principles when deciding how to behave. This relevance of personal values is related to context. For example, in an experimental study, De Kwaadsteniet, van Dijk, Wit, and de Cremer (2006) demonstrated how the values-behaviors association differs across contexts. They found that participants based their decisions in a resource dilemma game on their values when the size of resources was unknown; however, when participants were certain about the size of resources, they applied the equal division rule regardless of their values. The consensual social rule makes individuals to deem their values less relevant in behavioral decision. Together, these findings illustrate that people do not always behave according to their values.

The influence of context on the values-behaviors association suggest that the influence of self-transcendence/self-enhancement values on pro-environmental behaviors may vary across sociocultural contexts. In a cross-cultural study that involves four countries, Katz-Gerro, Greenspan, Handy, and Lee (2017) found the strength of the association between values and pro-environmental behaviors varies across countries and types of behaviors. Milfont and Markowitz (2016) also found a cross-national variation in the values-behaviors association; there was a stronger association among countries with higher levels of human development. To date, few studies have systematically explained this cross-cultural variation. Cross-cultural studies have revealed that the behavioral influence of values often depends on specific cultural contexts (Boer & Fischer, 2013; Roccas & Sagiv, 2010); however, in the study of pro-environmental behaviors, most of the past studies often involved only samples from Western cultures (Bain et al., 2016; Tam & Chan, 2017). Further, in the studies that involved more than one society, the focus was often on the cross-cultural similarities (and therefore, generalizability) of the findings (e.g., Schultz et al., 2005; Schultz & Zelezny, 1999). Together, while these studies offer significant insights into the importance of values, they offer limited insights into understanding the potential impact of social and cultural contexts on the behavioral influence of values. Accordingly, how these contexts would influence the extent to which self-transcendence values and self-enhancement values are translated into pro-environmental behaviors remains to be an open question.

Under what contexts would individuals refer to their self-transcendence or self-enhancement values in making an environmental decision? The present investigation answers this question by adopting a person-context interaction approach. This approach proposes that human behavior is determined not only by individuals’ internal attributes (e.g., personal values) but also by what the broader sociocultural context allows them to do (i.e., affordance). It is therefore reasonable to expect that the association between self-transcendence values/self-enhancement values and pro-environmental behaviors would vary across sociocultural contexts.

People engage in value-consistent behaviors as a way to express themselves (e.g., Bardi & Schwartz, 2003), which helps maintain self-consistency and facilitate the attainment of important values (Roccas & Sagiv, 2010; Rokeach, 1973). Individuals are not always encouraged to express oneself; the self-expression depends on the affordance in the societal contexts (Fischer & Boer, 2015). Some sociocultural contexts are more restrictive, in which people are encouraged to follow social norms and regulations rather than to express oneself (Chan et al., 2019). When self-expression is downplayed, personal values will become less relevant to construing and understanding a situation. When personal values are deemed to be of low relevance, individuals will rely on other factors in behavioral decisions (e.g., social norms). Accordingly, the relevance of personal values would be lower under these restrictive contexts, while the relevance of external factors (e.g., social norms, assigned roles) would be higher. Consequently, individuals are more likely to bypass their values when making decisions; thus, it results in a weaker association between values and behaviors. Following this logic, I contend that the association between values and pro-environmental behaviors would depend on the level of restrictiveness of the sociocultural contexts on self-expression. I refer to this account as the self-expression hypothesis.

Based on cross-cultural psychology studies (e.g., Kim & Markus, 1999; Suh, 2002), some cultures prioritize context dependence (e.g., collectivism) over personal agency (e.g., individualism). In these cultural contexts, people are deemed to adjust themselves according to social and contextual cues, while expressing one's values can be regarded as immature and inappropriate (Markus & Kitayama, 1994). For example, people in collectivistic cultures are more likely to view the inconsistency of oneself across situations as a sign of maturity (Suh, 2002). They also exhibit more tolerance of the inconsistency between values and behaviors and are more flexible to adjust their behaviors according to situational cues (e.g., social norms; Kashima, Siegal, Tanaka, & Kashima, 1992). Consequently, personal values are deemed less relevant to how one should behave in a situation. In societies that emphasize context dependence, there should be a weaker influence of values on people's attitudes and behaviors. In contrast, in societies that emphasize personal agency, individuals should more readily base their behaviors on personal values. Findings from past studies support this notion. For example, Kim and Sherman (2007) found that when making a decision, participants from individualistic cultures exhibited a stronger emphasis on expressing oneself than participants from collectivistic cultures did. Similarly, in a 31-country meta-analysis, Boer and Fischer (2013) found that the association between values and social attitudes was weaker in societies that emphasized norm validation and collectivism. Accordingly, I expect that the association between values and pro-environmental behaviors be weaker in societies that emphasize context dependence over personal agency.

The socio-ecological perspective offers another theoretical angle to the cross-cultural differences in the emphasis on self-expression (Oishi, 2014). This perspective posits that individuals construct and adopt strategies that enable them to cope with challenges posed by socio-economic and physical contexts. Accordingly, the extent to which one can freely express oneself is also related to the social ecology of society. A social ecology may reduce the relevance of personal values when staying with a large group is the optimal strategy for one to survive (Welzel & Inglehart, 2010; Yamagishi, Hashimoto, Li, & Schug, 2012). For example, under economic scarcity, staying with a large group can enhance people's chances to thrive, because a large group often has more social and economic resources (Welzel & Inglehart, 2010). Instead of expressing oneself, compliance with norms and social regulations can lower individuals' risks of being ostracized from the group and thereby enhance their chances to stay with the in-group (Welzel & Inglehart, 2010). Furthermore, the emphasis of in-group cohesion may create a stronger concern about social monitoring, in which individuals may pay more attention to others' evaluations and judgments. Accordingly, it is crucial for them to adjust oneself according to social expectation. The urban versus non-urban living exemplifies such social and economic constraints, given that non-urban regions often have lowered level of economic development and emphasized tight-knit social relationship. Yamagishi et al. (2012) found supportive evidence of this notion. They found that participants living in non-urbanized regions were less likely to choose a gift based on their personal preference than participants living in more urbanized regions were. Instead, these participants were more likely to choose a gift based on the majority rule.

Social information shared by the group also serves as guidance for how people could cope with ecological threats. Studies have identified two types of such threats. The first type is the threat of infectious disease. When there is an outbreak of infectious disease, the risk of being infected is lowered if one stays with their in-group and follows the safety practices of the group, given that the sanity of the ingroup is assumed (Schaller, 2016). Supporting this view, cross-cultural studies have found that societies with a higher prevalence of infectious diseases exhibit a stronger emphasis on norm compliance (e.g., Gelfand et al., 2011; Murray, Trudeau, & Schaller, 2011). The second type is the thermal climate. Under harsh thermal climates, social information can serve as a useful tool for people to make good use of the limited time and resource. Instead of experimenting a novel way to thrive, people tend to follow the successful and safety practices of their fellow members. It is noteworthy that climatic demand does not necessarily come with economic and resource scarcity (Van de Vliert, 2009). For example, Nordic countries are rich and developed, despite having more demanding climate. According to the climato-economic theory (Van de Vliert, 2009, 2011), when there are plenty of resources, individuals do not need to stay with the group to thrive, and thus, enjoy more freedom to make decisions based on their values. Accordingly, the impact of climatic demand on self-expression would also depend on the availability of national resources to cope with the threat. Supporting this notion, Van de Vliert (2013) found that participants enjoyed more freedom in richer and harsher thermal climates. Together, based on the socio-ecological perspective, I contend that self-expression is deemed to be less desirable in societies with higher levels of socio-economic constraints and ecological threats. Accordingly, I expect that the association between values and pro-environmental behaviors be weaker in societies with higher levels of socio-economic constraints and higher levels of ecological threats.

This study adopts a person-context interaction approach to understand the association between self-transcendence values/self-enhancement values and pro-environmental behaviors. More specifically, I contend that individuals sometimes do not rely on their values as guidance of their behaviors; it depends on how much the sociocultural contexts allow them to express oneself freely. When self-expression is restricted, the relevance of personal values in behavioral decision is low. Consequently, personal values would have a weaker influence on behaviors. I refer to this proposition as the self-expression hypothesis. Based on cross-cultural psychology, I hypothesize that in societies with a lower cultural emphasis on personal agency, there is a weaker association between self-transcendence values/self-enhancement values and pro-environmental behaviors (Hypothesis 1). Based on the socio-ecological perspectives, I hypothesize that in societies with higher levels of economic constraints and higher levels of ecological threats, there is also a weaker association between these values and pro-environmental behaviors (Hypotheses 2 and 3). Furthermore, based on the climato-economic theory (Van de Vliert, 2009), I also explore whether climatic demand and economic resource jointly influence the association between the two types of values and pro-environmental behaviors. That is, I also test a climatic demand X economic resource X values three way interaction.

To examine this hypothesis, I conducted two sets of multilevel analyses on datasets from the fifth wave (WVS-5) and sixth wave (WVS-6) of the World Value Survey. Both datasets contained standardized measures of individual-level self-transcendence values, self-enhancement values, and pro-environmental behaviors across many societies. I also obtained the societal-level data from cross-cultural psychology studies (e.g., Boer & Fischer, 2013; Gelfand et al., 2011), with all indicators being widely used in the literature.

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    Previous research has shown that biospheric, altruistic, and egoistic values explain more variance in proenvironmental behavior than explained by the self-determined motivation that is linked to such behavior (i.e. motivation fueled by the fulfilment of basic psychological needs). However, these findings might stem from the relatively narrow measures of proenvironmental behavior employed in these studies. In two studies, we investigated the predictive power of self-determined motivation and value orientations in explaining broader measures of self-reported proenvironmental behavior. Our results support our expectation that self-determined motivation would remain a significant predictor of proenvironmental behavior after controlling for value orientations. In line with our expectations, self-determined motivation (vs. values) was more predictive of behavior that was predominantly guided by environmental motives. We discuss the implications of these results for the prediction of proenvironmental behavior.

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    Many scholars have suggested that people could improve their well-being by developing closer connections with natureand that this would also promote the sustainable behaviors needed to address climate change. Research generally corroborates this idea, but few studies have examined the more specific hypothesis that positive emotions (caused by nature or otherwise) can directly influence pro-environmental behaviors. In particular, self-transcendent emotions such as awe, compassion, and gratitude can be prompted by nature, and they seem to foster prosocial behaviors. Most pro-environmental behaviors are also prosocial; they require cooperation and they benefit others. Some recent studies suggest that self-transcendent emotions can cause pro-environmental behavior, although results are mixed overall. We identify strategies for future research to resolve these inconclusive suggestions.

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    Journal of Environmental Psychology, Volume 72, 2020, Article 101501

    With the continuous growth of the global population and the increasing demand for natural resources, ecological resource scarcity has become a global issue that cannot be ignored. However, little is known about individuals' environment-related responses to ecological resource scarcity. Will people save resources for the future or consume them for immediate interests when resources become scarce? Drawing on the life history theory and construal level theory, we propose that individuals' environment-related responses to ecological resource scarcity depend on levels of future orientation. Analyses of multilevel data from 30 countries found that only in highly future-oriented countries could objective ecological resource scarcity positively predict individuals’ daily pro-environmental behaviors (Study 1). Two subsequent studies at the individual level again established the moderating effect of future orientation on the link between perceived ecological resource scarcity and pro-environmental behaviors (Studies 2 & 3), and the causal effect was also clarified (Study 3). Specifically, only for future-oriented people, perceived ecological resource scarcity or reminders of it could positively promote pro-environmental behaviors. We further verified the moderation hypothesis with water-saving posters to explore potential practical implications, i.e., whether the poster with water shortage information would have an effective promotional effect only when information about “concern for the future” is presented (Study 4). We concluded with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of the research findings.

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    Self-transcendent emotion dispositions: Greater connections with nature and more sustainable behavior

    Journal of Environmental Psychology, Volume 81, 2022, Article 101797

    In three studies, we explored how different classes of positive emotion dispositions may have different relations with pro-environmental outcomes despite sharing positive valence. We hypothesized that self-transcendent emotions (awe, compassion, love) would relate to more sustainable behaviors, beliefs, values, and self-nature representations because these emotions support a prosocial mindset and broaden the self-concept. Conversely, we hypothesized that self-interested emotions (joy, contentment, pride, amusement) would not relate to more of these pro-environmental outcomes and would instead predict more self-orientated beliefs and values because these emotions involve a greater self-focus. In Study 1, self-transcendent emotions uniquely predicted greater self-reported pro-environmental behavior, biospheric concern, nature connectedness, and more sustainable self-nature representations, whereas self-interested emotions did not and instead predicted greater egoistic concern. Study 2 aimed to replicate these findings and added measures of values and political beliefs. For self-transcendent emotions, the results of Study 1 were replicated, and it was also found that they uniquely predicted greater endorsement of self-transcendent values and less political conservatism. Self-interested emotions uniquely predicted less pro-environmental behavior and greater endorsement of self-enhancement values and conservative beliefs. Finally, Study 3 found that self-transcendent emotions but not self-interested emotions uniquely predicted more actual recycling weeks later. Implications for the intersection of positive emotions research and sustainability are discussed.

© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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