Who has the future in mind? Gender, time perspectives, and pro-environmental behaviour

Abstract

Introduction: An individual’s relation to time may be an important driver of pro-environmental behaviour. Objective: We studied whether young individual's gender and time-orientation are associated with pro-environmental behaviour. Methods: In a controlled laboratory environment with students in Germany, participants earned money by performing a real-effort task and were then offered the opportunity to invest their money into an environmental project that supports climate protection. Afterwards, we controlled for their time orientation. Results: In this consequential behavioural setting, we find that males who scored higher on future-negative orientation showed significantly more pro-environmental behaviour compared to females who scored higher on future-negative orientation and males who scored lower on future-negative orientation. Interestingly, our results are completely reversed when it comes to past-positive orientation. Conclusion: These findings have practical implications regarding the most appropriate way to address individuals in order to achieve more pro-environmental behaviour.

Let's Think About the Future: The Effect of Positive and Negative Future Primes on Pro-Environmental Behavior

“…Gu et al (2020) demonstrate that perceived ecological resource scarcity has a positive effect on pro-environmental behavior and environmental donation intentions only when sufficient future orientation is present. Recent work from Hoffmann et al (2022) finds significant interaction effects of future orientation and gender on pro-environmental behavior. More future-negative-oriented males behave significantly more environmentally friendly compared to less future-negative-oriented males and future-negative-oriented females.…”

Future of nature, our future. A preregistered report on future time perspective, social value orientation, and pro-environmental outcomes based on data from Poland and Sweden

“…Our analysis is expected to broaden knowledge about the norm activation model and test whether time perspectives, recently gaining attention in the field of pro-environmental behaviors (Hoffmann et al, 2022;Olsen et al, 2023), remain significant predictors of such activities, when controlling for the propensity to care for others and morality. Our results might also prove vital for pro-environmental education and campaigns, for instance, how to shape attitudes and behaviors-what aspects we should target (e.g., future orientation, cooperation tendencies, or morality).…”