How Do Implicit Materialism and Postmaterialism Affect Proenvironmental Behavior?

Abstract

In this study, we explored implicit materialistic and postmaterialistic values, focusing on the relationship between these values and environmental behaviors. Participants were 60 Chinese students, who completed via self-report the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and the Environmental Behaviors Questionnaire, along with a situation simulation experiment to measure their actual environmental behavior. Our results provide the first evidence for an application of the IAT in research focused on materialism and postmaterialism. We found that implicit postmaterialism significantly predicted proenvironmental behavioral intention in a Chinese context, and implicit materialism was a strong predictor of actual proenvironmental behaviors (i.e., avoidance of paper waste). These results indicate that, for Chinese people, materialism is an important motivation for their actual proenvironmental behaviors.

The Negative Associations Between Materialism and Pro-Environmental Attitudes and Behaviors: Individual and Regional Evidence From China

“…The government could enact policies to restrict mass messages stating that money, possessions, status, and image are important. Furthermore, the government can advocate the value of postmaterialism among the public, which has been shown to exert a positive effect on pro-environmental behaviors (Zhou, Ye, Geng, & Xu, 2015). Second, inspired by our Study 3 in which the website data were employed, there are also several potential ways to help the government implement materialism-reduction policies.…”

Factors Influencing Public-Sphere Pro-Environmental Behavior among Mongolian College Students: A Test of Value–Belief–Norm Theory

“…In recent years, increasing numbers of studies have addressed this topic in China given growing awareness of worsening environmental conditions in the last decade. Most of these pioneering studies were conducted in developed areas of China, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Nanjing, and focused on students' pro-environmental behavior in the private sphere [19][20][21]. Little empirical research exists on minority college students in the undeveloped western areas of China.…”

Actitudes implícitas en Psicología Ambiental. Una revisión de literatura

“…Una cuestión importante corresponde al estudio de las actitudes implícitas en la predicción de las conductas pro-ambientales, las cuales ocupan un lugar prioritario entre las líneas actuales de la Psicología Ambiental (e.g., Moser, 2003). En este sentido, los resultados de los estudios revisados no son consistentes, pues se observan correlaciones de nulas a moderadas (Levine & Strube, 2012;Olivos & Aragonés, 2013;Schultz et al, 2004;Zhou et al, 2015). A su vez, un solo estudio muestra que las medidas implícitas incrementan la predicción de las conductas pro-ambientales con respecto a las actitudes explícitas (Ratliff et al, 2017).…”