Unleashing the Power of Connection: How Adolescents’ Prosocial Propensity Drives Ecological and Altruistic Behaviours

Alexander Neaman (), Eiliana Montero, Pamela Pensini, Elliot Burnham, Mónica Castro, Dmitry S. Ermakov and Claudia Navarro-Villarroel
Additional contact information
Alexander Neaman: Departamento de Recursos Ambientales, Facultad de Ciencias Agronómicas, Universidad de Tarapacá, Arica 1000000, Chile
Eiliana Montero: Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas, Universidad de Costa Rica, San José 11501-2060, Costa Rica
Pamela Pensini: School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne 3800, Australia
Elliot Burnham: Escuela de Agronomía, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Quillota 2260000, Chile
Mónica Castro: Escuela de Agronomía, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Quillota 2260000, Chile
Dmitry S. Ermakov: Department of Psychology and Pedagogy, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia Named after Patrice Lumumba (RUDN University), 6 Miklukho-Maklaya St., Moscow 117198, Russia
Claudia Navarro-Villarroel: Área de Educación, Instituto de Estadística, Universidad de Valparaíso, Valparaíso 2340000, Chile

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 10, 1-14

Abstract: Both altruistic and ecological behaviours are considered prosocially driven behaviours, but our understanding of what motivates action in either the human or ecological domain is still in its infancy. Our goal was to assess connection to nature, connection to people, and connection to country as mediators of the relationship between prosocial propensity and prosocial behaviours in both the ecological and human domains. This study used honesty-humility as an indicator of prosocial propensity. Data for the study were collected through online surveys in Spanish. The survey was answered by 438 adolescent participants aged 11–19 years. The present study demonstrates that personal prosocial propensity can be directed to a particular domain of prosocial behaviour (ecological or altruistic) through the individual’s connection to the relevant domain. Specifically, the effect of prosocial propensity on ecological behaviour was positively mediated by connection to people and connection to nature, but negatively mediated by connection to country. For altruistic behaviour, the effect of prosocial propensity was positive via connection to people, nature, and country. Future research is called for, in particular, to examine the role of connection to country in ecological behaviour.

Keywords: connectedness to nature; connectedness to humanity; national identification; pro-environmental behaviour; sustainable behaviour; altruism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/10/8070/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/10/8070/ (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:15:y:2023:i:10:p:8070-:d:1147973

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 ().