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The purpose of the study was to test a hierarchical model of the effects of general values, environmental values, problem awareness, and personal norms on general proenvironmental behavior. The model starts with the effects of the relatively stable structures of general values and moves toward effects of more specific environmental values, environmental problem awareness, and personal norms. A personal norm was expected to mediate the effects of values and problem awareness on proenvironmental behavior. Survey data from a Swedish sample of 1,400 individuals were used in a path analysis to test the model, which was supported, and the results showed that the personal norm could be seen as derived from self-transcendent and ecocentric values and activated by problem awareness. The personal norm mediated the effects from general values, environmental values, and problem awareness on proenvironmental behavior.

Research on psychological restoration and restorative environments is a needed complement to work on stress and environmental stressors. Two laboratory experiments tested the utility of two restorative environments theories, one concerned with directed attention capacity renewal and the other with stress reduction and associated changes in emotion. Various strategies were employed to distinguish restorative effects from other effects, to limit the role of arousal reduction in attentional restoration, and to begin mapping the time course for the emergence of outcomes. Both experiments tested for differential emotional and performance effects as a function of photographic environmental simulation (natural or urban environment). Across the experiments the natural environment simulation engendered generally more positive emotional self-reports. That consistent performance effects were not found in either study suggests that attentional restoration as reflected in performance is a more time-intensive process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]