How does Schwartz's theory of human values affect the proenvironmental behavior model?

• Published in: Baltic Journal of Management 2021-03, Vol.16 (2), p.276-297
• Main Authors: Primc, Kaja, Ogorevc, Marko, Slabe-Erker, Renata, Bartolj, Tjaša, Murovec, Nika
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Attitudes; Behavior; Environmental activism; Environmental impact; Environmental protection; Environmental psychology; Environmentalism; Materialism; Multivariate statistical analysis; Natural resources; Perceived control; Polls & surveys; Threats; Universalism; Values; Variables
• ISSN: 1746-5265; 1746-5273
• DOI: 10.1108/BJM-08-2020-0276

PurposeThe diversity of perspectives means that one can find many factors and models of proenvironmental behavior. However, they typically suffer from limitations and varying degrees of validity in specific contexts, suggesting that today the prime goal should be to learn and improve the models which have been already developed. In this study, the authors build on the model for predicting proenvironmental behavior developed by Oreg and Katz-Gerro (2006), namely one of the most comprehensive cross-national proenvironmental behavior models and one of the few not to be limited to either a local or single-country context or specific proenvironmental behavior.Design/methodology/approachBy using the statistical matching technique, the authors merged data from two existing databases without common identifiers – the International Social Survey Program (environmental module) and the European Social Survey (Round 5). The resulting multinational data concerning 9,710 observations enabled a replication with extensions of Oreg and Katz-Gerro's (2006) proenvironmental behavior model that incorporates newly added Schwartz's theory of human values. To achieve the study's main objective, that is, to present improvements to the original model of proenvironmental behavior, the authors used structural equation modeling (SEM) procedures to estimate four competing models in the R program.FindingsThis study implies that Schwartz's individually measured motivational types of values (benevolence [BE], universalism [UN], self-direction [SD]) are predictors of people's proenvironmental behavior, while his conceptualization of post-materialism yields a better model fit than Inglehart's country-level post-materialism scores. The results also corroborate previous findings that post-materialist values can stimulate proenvironmental behaviors through attitudes, perceived behavioral control and intentions. The present study reveals that proenvironmental attitudes did not change substantially in the 10-year period, even though the world's environmental and sustainability challenges have largely increased. Surprisingly, the mean value of several of the perceived threat variables even decreased.Originality/valueThe authors externally validate one of the most comprehensive proenvironmental behavior models by reproducing it using new multinational large-sample data with nearly 10,000 observations collected 10 years later. The most significant addition to the original model introduced in the cu