Climate Change Beliefs, Personal Environmental Norms and Environmentally Conscious Behaviour Intention

Chamila R. Perera, Hassan Kalantari and Lester W. Johnson
Additional contact information
Chamila R. Perera: Department of Management & Marketing, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia
Hassan Kalantari: Department of Management & Marketing, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia
Lester W. Johnson: Department of Management & Marketing, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 3, 1-15

Abstract: Purpose—The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between climate change beliefs, personal environmental norms and environmentally conscious behaviour. This study also investigates how the relationship between climate change beliefs and environmentally conscious behaviour is mediated by environmental identity. Design/methodology/approach—A survey conducted online involving 564 Australians informs the findings. Data analysis is performed using AMOS, a structural equation modelling package. Findings—This study finds strong positive relationships between climate change beliefs, personal environmental norms and environmentally conscious behaviour. The relationship between climate change beliefs and environmentally conscious behaviour is partially mediated by environmental identity. In addition, this study also finds that the relationships between personnel environmental norms, and environmental identity and environmentally conscious behaviour are partially mediated by climate change beliefs. Further, both personal environmental norms and climate change beliefs play stronger roles than environmental identity in environmentally conscious behaviour. Originality—This study engages in a scholarly conversation which claims the predictability of personal environmental norms in environmentally conscious behaviour. It adds value by establishing boundary conditions to some conversations in the field of study that claim environmental identity can be a better predictor of environmentally conscious behaviour. Research implications and limitations—This study postulates an integrated framework of value, beliefs and norms and the norm activation model to investigate environmentally conscious behaviour. This study findings are limited to a survey which involved an Australian sample. Practical implications—This study provides valuable implications for environmentally conscious businesses and policy makers. This study stresses the importance of highlighting climate change beliefs to enhance increased environmentally conscious behaviour engagement. It is, however, strongly recommended to focus on personal environmental norms as well because they play a stronger role in environmentally conscious behaviour engagement than climate change beliefs and strengthen climate change beliefs. This is important especially when conversations on the adverse effects of climate change and strategies to combat them are clouded by some political debates.

Keywords: personal environmental norms; environmental identity; environmentally conscious behaviour; climate change beliefs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/3/1824/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/3/1824/ (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:14:y:2022:i:3:p:1824-:d:742691

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 ().