Browsing by Subject "Environmentalism"
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- ItemTurning off the Lights at the End of the World: An Examination of Hope, Environmental Identity and Pro-Environmental Behavior(2017) Tartaro, Alana; Le, BenjaminBecause climate change poses a serious threat to the natural environment and to human health and well-being, individual engagement in pro-environmental behavior is an international imperative. Two studies examined engagement in pro-environmental behavior from a hope perspective, hypothesizing that hope predicts pro-environmental behavior and that hopeless message exposure interacts with environmental identity and comparative optimism to predict hope. Specifically, it was hypothesized that environmental identity would buffer the negative effects of hopeless message exposure, and high levels of comparative optimism would increase the effectiveness of buffering. A first study measured each of these variables, and a second study manipulated hopeless message exposure in addition to measuring the remaining variables. There was support for a positive association between hope and pro-environmental behavior, however hope did not have predictive power beyond a set of control variables (e.g. environmental attitudes and perceived behavioral control). The most robust result was hopeless message exposure’s negative association with hope. Environmental identity was not found to buffer hopeless message exposure, but it was found to contribute directly to hope. There was mixed support for the predicted interaction between environmental identity and comparative optimism. This research suggested that hope might not be critical for encouraging pro-environmental behavior, but that environmental identity and comparative optimism are important for protecting environmental hope.