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Environmental problems could be reduced if individuals act pro-environmentally. Typically, studies have examined factors explaining pro-environmental behavior among adults, but not among children. As children are the future generations that must meet the targets set by the 2015 Paris climate agreement, it is important to understand which factors influence their engagement in pro-environmental behaviors, such as their energy saving behavior. In two correlational studies among primary and secondary school children ( nstudy1 = 69, nstudy2 = 958), we tested if normative considerations proposed by the Value-Identity-Personal Norm (VIP) model can explain children’s self-reported energy-saving behaviors. Our results revealed that in line with research among adults, children’s biospheric values were related to their energy-saving self-identity, in turn associated with their personal norms to save energy. Furthermore, we found partial support for the proposed relationship between the variables of the VIP model and a range of self-reported energy-saving behaviors.

We tested the influence of a private commitment strategy, in which people pledge to change their behaviour, on energy saving behaviour. We found that the private commitment only influenced energy saving behaviour when the behaviour was perceived to be relatively effortful. When people found it easy to engage in the behaviour, the private commitment did not promote energy saving behaviour. Importantly, we tested the underlying mechanism why private commitments may influence energy saving in households. Our results show that when behaviours are perceived to be relatively effortful, the private commitment strengthened people's personal norm to engage in the behaviour. That is, after making a private commitment they felt more morally obliged to engage in the behaviour they committed to. In turn, a stronger personal norm was positively related to energy saving behaviour. People's injunctive norms and environmental self-identity did not explain why making a private commitment changed energy saving behaviour when this behaviour is perceived to be relatively effortful. Our findings contribute to the literature by providing more insight into why and under which circumstances private commitments may influence behaviour. Our results suggest that only when people find the behaviour somewhat effortful a private commitment may increase their personal norm to engage in the behaviour, thereby making it more likely that they actually do so.

The authors would like to note the following corrections to the final version of the above-mentioned article: Fig. 1 in the published article accidentally displayed the means for the negative emotions, instead of the positive emotions. The corrected Figure 1 (see below) displays the appropriate means: those for the positive emotions. [Figure presented] Fig. 1. Anticipated positive emotions after engagement in volitional and non-volitional (un-)sustainable behavior. Error bars denote standard errors. The authors would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Re​cent re​search found that when asked ex​plic​itly, peo​ple as​so​ci​ate (fu​ture) sus​tain​able ac​tions with pos​i​‐ tive in​stead of neg​a​tive emo​tions. This em​pir​i​cal find​ing im​plies that pol​icy mak​ers could har​ness peo​ple's in​trin​sic mo​ti​va​tion to pro​mote sus​tain​able ac​tions. It is how​ever not clear where this as​so​ci​a​tion be​tween sus​tain​able ac​tions and pos​i​tive emo​tions stems from. Why would peo​ple re​port that go​ing green feels good, given that such ac​tions of​ten re​quire more ef​fort or in​con​ve​nience? We ar​gue and show that the pre​‐ vi​ously found re​la​tion​ship be​tween sus​tain​able ac​tions and an​tic​i​pated pos​i​tive emo​tions is not merely a mat​ter of so​cial de​sir​abil​ity, but rather a mat​ter of mean​ing: act​ing sus​tain​ably is of​ten per​ceived as a moral choice and thus as a mean​ing​ful course of ac​tion, which can elicit pos​i​tive emo​tions. Specif​i​cally, we found that par​tic​i​pants also as​so​ci​ate sus​tain​able ac​tions with pos​i​tive in​stead of neg​a​tive emo​tions when us​ing an im​plicit as​so​ci​a​tion mea​sure – one that re​duces the like​li​hood of so​cially de​sir​able re​sponses (Study 1). More​over, par​tic​i​pants an​tic​i​pated more in​tense emo​tions when those ac​tions were mean​ing​ful to them: they felt more pos​i​tive about sus​tain​able ac​tions, and more neg​a​tive about un​sus​tain​able ac​tions, when they chose to en​gage in those ac​tions and when those ac​tions are con​sid​ered per​son​ally rel​e​vant to the in​di​vid​ual (Study 2). To​gether, these stud​ies ex​plain why act​ing green feels good, and sup​port the no​‐ tion that sus​tain​able ac​tions are in​deed ex​pected (not merely re​ported) to be in​trin​si​cally mo​ti​vat​ing.

Every day, people make many decisions that can have important implications for the quality of the environment. This chapter describes the significant role emotions that can play in people's engagement in environmental behaviour. It discusses empirical research that shows how emotions can be a motive for environmental behaviour. The chapter discusses the hedonic and eudaimonic views of environmental behaviour, to gain more clarity into why pro‐environmental behaviour can be associated with negative as well as positive emotions. It elaborates on conditions under which acting pro‐environmentally elicits positive emotions. The extent to which people anticipate experiencing certain emotions as a result of environmental behaviour can have an important influence on whether or not they intend to engage in this behaviour. Based on the specific pro‐environmental behaviour at hand, acting pro‐environmentally may be pleasant or unpleasant to engage in, eliciting positive or negative emotions.

Although pro-environmental behaviour is often believed to be difficult, aggravating, and potentially threatening one’s quality of life, recent studies suggest that people who behave in a more pro-environmental way are actually more satisfied with their lives. In this manuscript, we aim to explain this apparent paradox by reviewing theoretical arguments and empirical evidence for both sides of the coin: why would acting pro-environmentally decrease one’s well-being, and why would it increase one’s well-being? We conclude that part of the answer lies in a different view on what well-being entails, and more specifically, whether the focus is on hedonic well-being ( i.e ., feeling pleasure) or eudaimonic well-being ( i.e. , feeling meaningful).

Recent research suggests that engagement in environmentally-friendly behavior can feel good. Current explanations for such a link do not focus on the nature of environmentally-friendly behavior itself, but rather propose well-being is more or less a side-benefit; behaviors that benefit environmental quality (e.g., spending one's money on people rather than products) also tend to make us feel good. We propose that the moral nature of environmentally-friendly behavior itself may elicit positive emotions as well, because engaging in this behavior can signal one is an environmentally-friendly and thus a good person. Our results show that engagement in environmentally-friendly behavior can indeed affect how people see themselves: participants saw themselves as being more environmentally-friendly when they engaged in more environmentally-friendly behavior (Study 1). Furthermore, environmentally-friendly behavior resulted in a more positive self-image, more strongly when it was voluntarily engaged in, compared to when it was driven by situational constraints (Study 2). In turn, the more environmentally-friendly (Study 1) and positive (Study 2) people saw themselves, the better they felt about acting environmentally-friendly. Together, these results suggest that the specific self-signal that ensues from engaging in environmentally-friendly behavior can explain why environmentally-friendly actions may elicit a good feeling.

Item does not contain fulltext This article focuses on social situations in which people are surprised about what is happening and inhibited about how to respond to the situation at hand. We study these situations by examining a classic topic in social psychology: how people respond to receiving better outcomes than are deserved. In these situations, the actions of an authority or a coworker push in the direction of accepting and enjoying the unfair outcome, whereas personal values for most people push in the direction of rejecting or being displeased with the outcome. This conflict may inhibit people's response to the advantageous but unfair outcomes. If people are indeed inhibited about how to respond to these kinds of outcomes, then lowering behavioral inhibition by reminding people of having acted in the past without inhibitions (in a manner that is unrelated to the outcomes participants subsequently receive) should affect reactions to the outcomes. Specifically, we hypothesize that because many people are prosocial and want to adhere to principles of fairness, reminders of behavioral disinhibition will lead to less pleasure with the unfairly obtained outcomes. The results of 8 experiments (conducted both inside and outside the psychology laboratory) revealed evidence for this benign disinhibition effect on various reactions to outcomes that are better than deserved. In further accordance with our line of reasoning, the effect is particularly pronounced among those who adhere to a prosocial orientation or who have adopted a prosocial mindset and is not observed among those with proself orientations or mindsets. 01 oktober 2011