Normative Influences on Adolescents’ Self-Reported Pro-Environmental Behaviors: The Role of Parents and Friends
Abstract
Pro-environmental behavioral patterns are influenced by relevant others’ actions and expectations. Studies about the intergenerational transmission of environmentalism have demonstrated that parents play a major role in their children’s pro-environmental actions. However, little is known about how other social agents may shape youth’s environmentalism. This cross-sectional study concentrates on the role that parents and peers have in the regulation of 12- to 19-year-olds’ pro-environmental behaviors. We also consider the common response bias effect by examining the associations between parents, peers, and adolescents’ pro-environmentalism in two independent data sets. Data Set 1 (N = 330) includes adolescents’ perceptions of relevant others’ behaviors. Data Set 2 (N = 152) includes relevant others’ self-reported pro-environmental behavior. Our results show that parents’ and peers’ descriptive and injunctive norms have a direct effect on adolescents’ pro-environmental behavior and an indirect one, through personal norms. Adolescents seem to be accurate in the perception of their close ones’ environmental actions.
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Biographies
Silvia Collado is an assistant professor at the Department of Psychology and Sociology of University of Zaragoza. She is interested in the study of the restorative effects of natural and built environments, environmental preferences, and the factors shaping the development and change of environmental behaviors.
Henk Staats teaches environmental and social psychology at the Department of Social and Organizational Psychology of Leiden University. His research interests include environmental preferences, psychological restoration, proxemics, and the analysis and change of pro-environmental behavior.
Patricia Sancho is an assistant professor at the Department of Psychology and Sociology of University of Zaragoza. She holds a PhD in psychology and an MA in health and social care in dependency and clinical psychology. Main lines of research are quality of life, structural equation models, and psychometrics.
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