Does enjoyment focus prevent pro-environmental behaviour?

Abstract

Based on empirical findings that pro-environmental behaviour occurs less frequently on vacation, we hypothesise that people have an enjoyment-related threshold for displaying pro-environmental behaviours: they display certain behaviours in low enjoyment-focused contexts, such as at home, but not in highly enjoyment-focused (hedonic) contexts, such as on vacation. We test whether a threshold exists after which the desire to enjoy takes precedence over the willingness to act with the environment in mind. The results of our study show that this is not the case. Contrary to the currently dominant paradigm, we find that home habits and effort also drive pro-environmental behaviours, opening new avenues for the design of behaviour change interventions.