Prioritizing intrinsic life goals (self-development, community involvement, relationships) rather than extrinsic ones (money, fame, image) is said to foster not only personal wellbeing, but also pro-social behavior such as protecting the environment. We explored concurrent and prospective links between intrinsic (versus extrinsic) life goals and self-reported environmentally responsible behavior, using correlational and longitudinal data from adult participants in a mass consumer society (UK) and a fast developing nation (Chile). In both countries, the importance of intrinsic (versus extrinsic) life goals was associated cross-sectionally with environmentally responsible behavior, even after controlling for possible effects of environmental worldviews and environmental identification. In longitudinal analyses, life goals prospectively predicted environmentally responsible behavior over a two-year period, whereas, rather unexpectedly, environmental worldviews and environmental identification did not. We conclude that focusing on intrinsic, rather than extrinsic, life goals may be important not just for individuals' well-being, but also for the well-being of future generations.
Article (Accepted Version) http://sro.sussex.ac.uk Furlong, Caitlin and Vignoles, Vivian L (2020) Social identification in collective climate activism: predicting participation in the environmental movement, extinction rebellion. Identity.
Numerous studies document that societal happiness is correlated with individualism, but the nature of this phenomenon remains understudied. In the current paper, we address this gap and test the reasoning that individualism correlates with societal happiness because the most common measure of societal happiness (i.e., country-level aggregates of personal life satisfaction) is individualism-themed. With the data collected from 13,009 participants across fifty countries, we compare associations of four types of happiness (out of which three are more collectivism-themed than personal life satisfaction) with two different measures of individualism. We replicated previous findings by demonstrating that societal happiness measured as country-level aggregate of personal life satisfaction is correlated with individualism. Importantly though, we also found that the country-level aggregates of the collectivism-themed measures of happiness do not tend to be significantly correlated with individualism. Implications for happiness studies and for policy makers are signaled.
Vivian (2018) Being in the Social: a cross-cultural and cross-generational study on identity processes related to Facebook use. Computers in Human Behavior, 80. pp. 81-87.
Based on motivated identity construction theory (MICT, Vignoles, 2011), we offer an integrative approach examining the combined roles of six identity motives (self-esteem, distinctiveness, belonging, meaning, continuity and efficacy) instantiated at three different motivational levels (personal, social and collective identity) as predictors of group
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