Values, Environmental Concern, and Environmental Behavior

2004/01/01 by Wouter Poortinga, Linda Steg, Charles Vlek · 1,125 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Environmental Science · Mathematics · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Ecology #Economics #Energy (signal processing) #Environmental Education and Sustainability #Environmental Sustainability in Business #Environmental economics #Environmental policy #Environmental quality #Environmental resource management #Government (linguistics) #Mathematics #Psychology #Public economics #Social Acceptance of Renewable Energy #Statistics #Value (mathematics)

paper · open access · doi:10.1177/0013916503251466

published in Environment and Behavior 36(1), 70-93 (SAGE Publishing)

openalex publication_date 2004/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04

Abstract

In this study, the role of values in the field of household energy use is investigated by using the concept of quality of life (QOL). Importance judgments on 22 QOL aspects could be summarized into seven clearly interpretable value dimensions. The seven value dimensions and general and specific environmental concern contributed significantly to the explanation of policy support for government regulation and for market strategies aimed at managing environmental problems as well as to the explanation of the acceptability of specific home and transport energy-saving measures. In line with earlier research, home and transport energy use were especially related to sociodemographic variables like income and household size. These results show that it is relevant to distinguish between different measures of environmental impact and different types of environmental intent. Moreover, the results suggest that using only attitudinal variables, such as values, may be too limited to explain all types of environmental behavior.

Citations

• The New Ecological Paradigm in Social-Psychological Context
• Values and their Effect on Pro-Environmental Behavior
• A Brief Inventory of Values

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