Adaptation and psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Pro-Environmental Behaviours Scale (PEBS)

Elisa Menardo (), Margherita Brondino () and Margherita Pasini ()
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Elisa Menardo: University of Verona
Margherita Brondino: University of Verona
Margherita Pasini: University of Verona

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, 2020, vol. 22, issue 7, No 41, 6907-6930

Abstract: Abstract Given that human behaviour is a major cause of environmental problems, psychology can play a crucial role in the efforts to deal with environmental issues. Environmentally significant behaviours (EBs) are defined as behaviours that harm the (natural) environment as little as possible or that contribute to its protection. However, psychologists often assess behaviours that are the target of interest without knowing their influence on the ecological system. The Pro-Environmental Behaviours Scale (PEBS; Markle in Hum Ecol 41:905–914, 2013) is, to our knowledge, the only scale based on empirical evidence from environmental scientific studies that covers the principal EBs categories proposed in the literature (private-sphere environmentalist, activism, and nonactivist behaviours in the public sphere). The aim of this paper is to adapt the original PEBS to the Italian context (qualitative phase) and to verify its psychometric properties (e.g. factor structure) (quantitative phase). The original scale was slightly modified following a suggestion obtained in a focus group (n = 17) and in a pilot study (n = 18). On a sample of 765 Italian adults [70% female, mean (SD) age = 41.7 (12.2), 2 missing] results revealed a 4-factor structure (conservation, environmental citizenship, food, and transportation) of the Italian PEBS, like the original version (Markle 2013), maintaining 15 of the 19 original items (CFI = .973; RMSEA = .037: WRMR = 1.047; χ(84)2 = 170.63, p

Keywords: Pro-Environmental Behaviours; Italian adults; Confirmatory factor analysis; Psychometrics properties; Ecological behaviours (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1007/s10668-019-00520-3

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