Mapping our underlying cognitions and emotions about good environmental behavior: Why we fail to act despite the best of intentions

Power, Nicola ORCID: 0000-0001-6196-1284, Beattie, Geoffrey and McGuire, Laura (2017) Mapping our underlying cognitions and emotions about good environmental behavior: Why we fail to act despite the best of intentions. SEMIOTICA, 2017 (215). pp. 193-234.

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/sem-2016-0035

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Despite the widespread recognition of climate change as the single biggest global threat, the willingness of people to change their behavior to mitigate its effects is limited. Past research, often focusing on specific categories of behavior, has highlighted a very significant gap between people’s intentions to behave more sustainably and their actual behavior. This paper presents a new approach to this issue, by using more open-ended questions to map a much broader range of cognitions and emotions about good environmental behavior. Two key findings emerged. Firstly, participants were aware of the contradiction between their level of concern about the environment and their willingness to act in more sustainable ways. The qualitative analysis further revealed that this discrepancy often hinged on a lack of knowledge about how to act more sustainably; the analysis also revealed a desire for more information about genuinely green behavior. Secondly, pro-environmental behavior was often conceptualized by participants in essentially “social” terms; anticipated emotions relating to sustainable/non-sustainable behavior were as closely tied to the behavior of one’s peers as to one’s own behavior. This finding suggests that we must highlight the social dimension in any interventions to increase sustainable behaviors amongst the public.</jats:p>

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	climate change, sustainability, value-action gap, environmental behavior, cognition, emotions
Divisions:	Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Management
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	19 Jun 2023 09:01
Last Modified:	14 Mar 2024 17:54
DOI:	10.1515/sem-2016-0035
Open Access URL:	https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/78482/1/Powe...
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3171076