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Green lifestyles and subjective well-being: More about self-image than actual behavior?

Martin Binder and Ann-Kathrin Blankenberg

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2017, vol. 137, issue C, 304-323

Abstract: Does environmentally-friendly behavior necessarily imply sacrifice? In the metric of subjective well-being, research has shown that green behavior and sustainable consumption are positively related to life satisfaction. We extend this research analyzing UKHLS household panel data for Great Britain, showing that this boost in life satisfaction is mostly due to self-image (i.e. one's own assessment of how environmentally-friendly one's behavior is) but not due to concrete pro-environmental behaviors such as conserving water, recycling and so on. We further show that green self-image increases the extent and intensity of green behavior yet even the greenest (self-identified) individuals do not consistently exhibit all pro-environmental behaviors. By this, our data can be used to assess the varying extent of a value-action gap for different pro-environmental behaviors for our sample.

Keywords: Sustainability; Green lifestyle; Environmentally-friendly behavior; Subjective well-being; UKHLS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I31 Q51 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (59)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:137:y:2017:i:c:p:304-323

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2017.03.009

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Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

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