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Volunteers play critical roles in leading the activities of environmental organizations seeking to address the environmental crisis. Despite their importance, we know little about the factors that motivate individuals to engage in different environmental volunteer behaviors. Drawing on an extended Theory of Planned Behavior model, this study surveyed 259 experienced environmental volunteers who had participated in a range of environmental volunteer "leadership" and "participation" (i.e., nonleadership) behaviors to identify factors associated with these behaviors. Findings indicate that higher self-efficacy beliefs about specific leadership tasks, and higher past participation in participation behaviors, were significant predictors of engaging in more leadership behaviors. Higher self-efficacy and stronger identification as an environmental volunteer also predicted increased participation behaviors, as well as a younger age. Qualitative analysis of open-ended responses highlighted the importance of organizational factors such as training opportunities and receiving support and appreciation from the group in building leaders' self-efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fostering nature connection may promote psychological well-being and enhance proenvironmental attitudes. However, there is limited understanding of what factors influence a person's nature connection. Using survey responses from 1,000 residents of a large Australian city, we describe the relationship between nature connection and nature experiences at different stages in life, that is, past nature experiences that occurred during childhood, and current, everyday nature experiences. Both past childhood nature experiences and duration of current nature experiences significantly predicted nature connection. The positive relationship between duration of current nature experiences and nature connection was not significantly moderated by past childhood nature experiences. Hence, current nature experiences are associated with high levels of nature connection, even among those lacking childhood nature experiences. This research empirically demonstrates the positive relationship between nature connection and nature experiences, and suggests that it may be equally important to promote nature experiences at any life stage if increasing nature connection is the goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A sizable minority of people doubt that climate change is primarily caused by human activity (“attribution skeptics”). Consequently, it is important to examine the psychological drivers of pro-environmental intentions among attribution skeptics and the extent to which they are more or less influenced by traditional climate change messages. Study 1 (N = 4,345) examined the psychological correlates of motivation to engage in pro-environmental behaviors among people at various points of the spectrum of belief in anthropogenic climate change. As expected, motivation to engage in pro-environmental behaviors is related to risk perceptions and concern about the consequences of climate change. Interestingly, however, these links were stronger the more participants reported being skeptical that climate change is anthropogenic. This suggests that climate change interventions might be especially successful in changing pro-environmental motivation among attribution skeptics, a prediction supported by an experimental intervention (Study 2; N = 600). Theoretical and applied implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study developed a behavioral model of intentions to purchase aviation carbon offsets, and tested the model through structural equation models. The model draws on the established hierarchical models of human behavior to hypothesize relationships between general and specific attitudes as predictors of offsetting intentions. The New Ecological Paradigm scale, the theory of planned behavior and variables from past literature were employed to measure general environmental attitudes, intermediate beliefs, and behavior-specific attitudes and norms. The current research represents a first attempt to build a theoretical model that helps to understand the relationships between factors that determine whether people will purchase aviation carbon offsets. The results show that a more positive orientation toward the environment could be an important predictor of environmental intentions operating both directly on intentions as well as guiding beliefs that relate to intentions. Policy implications of the findings are discussed, encouraging greater voluntary climate action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has not addressed the possibility that people may face conflicting norms of pro-environmental behavior from their multiple in-groups. Across two studies, the authors test competing hypotheses: People may be demotivated by norm conflict, or conversely, norm conflict may motivate people to action. The results of both studies suggest a clearly motivating effect of conflict. Norm conflict was associated with decreased water usage (i.e., increased water conservation) in Study 1, and increased pro-environmental behavior intentions in Study 2. The effects of conflict were partially mediated by perceived effectiveness in Study 2. Although these initial findings indicate that conflict motivates rather than hinders behavioral engagement, future research should investigate whether the nature of the influence of norm conflict depends on factors such as issue importance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Norms have a pervasive influence on behavior, yet previous research has not addressed that people often face conflicting norms from multiple ingroups. The current research addresses this gap in the context of proenvironmental behavior and demonstrates two effects predicted by the novel theoretical position we offer: People can be de-motivated by norm-conflict, or conversely, norm-conflict can encourage people to take action. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that norm-conflict is associated with increased perceived effectiveness for those with positive attitudes to the issue and reduced perceived effectiveness for those with moderate attitudes, and effectiveness perceptions mediated an indirect effect on behavioral intentions. Study 3 found that perceived effectiveness also moderates the effects of norm-conflict such that norm-conflict only influences intentions when perceived effectiveness is high. Norm-conflict is both positively and negatively related to behavioral decision making, suggesting additional considerations in the design of social norms-based interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]