Act like There Is a Tomorrow—Contact and Affinity with Younger People and Legacy Motivation as Predictors of Climate Protection among Older People

Theresa de Paula Sieverding (), Vanessa Kulcar and Karolin Schmidt
Additional contact information
Theresa de Paula Sieverding: Institute of Psychology, Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, 39106 Magdeburg, Germany
Vanessa Kulcar: Institute of Psychology, Innsbruck University, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
Karolin Schmidt: Institute of Psychology, Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, 39106 Magdeburg, Germany

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 4, 1-26

Abstract: The climate crisis poses a major threat for sustainability, with the young and future generations likely to be among the most affected groups in the climate crisis. Older generations will be less affected but have a greater impact both in terms of contribution and mitigation. We investigated potential intergenerational drivers of older Germans’ climate protection intentions and behavior in two pre-registered studies ( N 1 = 411, 55- to 75-year olds; N 2 = 309, 55- to 86-year olds). On a correlational level, both studies revealed that contact between generations (particularly high-quality contact) indirectly explained the participants’ climate protection intentions/behavior. This effect was mediated by affinity with younger people (Study 1) and its subfacets of perspective taking and empathic concern (but not the subfacet of perceived oneness; Study 2). Study 1 further provided evidence that legacy motivation, i.e., the desire to leave behind a positive legacy, was positively related to participants’ climate protection intentions and behavior. Study 2’s attempt at testing the causal role of the subfacets of affinity was not successful, as the experimental manipulation of perspective taking toward younger people failed. However, the two studies provide correlational evidence that the closer older people feel to younger people and the future consequences of their behaviors, the more willing they are to protect the climate.

Keywords: sustainability; climate crisis; intergenerational prosociality; intergenerational contact; intergenerational affinity; legacy motivation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/4/1477/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/4/1477/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:4:p:1477-:d:1336446

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().