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Compensatory and Catalyzing Beliefs: Their Relationship to Pro-environmental Behavior and Behavioral Spillover in Seven Countries

There is growing research interest in behavioral spillover and its potential for enabling more widespread lifestyle change than has typically been achieved through discrete behavioral interventions. There are some routes by which spillover could take place without conscious attention or explicit rec...

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Autores principales: Capstick, Stuart, Whitmarsh, Lorraine, Nash, Nick, Haggar, Paul, Lord, Josh
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6536624/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31164844
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00963
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author Capstick, Stuart
Whitmarsh, Lorraine
Nash, Nick
Haggar, Paul
Lord, Josh
author_facet Capstick, Stuart
Whitmarsh, Lorraine
Nash, Nick
Haggar, Paul
Lord, Josh
author_sort Capstick, Stuart
collection PubMed
description There is growing research interest in behavioral spillover and its potential for enabling more widespread lifestyle change than has typically been achieved through discrete behavioral interventions. There are some routes by which spillover could take place without conscious attention or explicit recognition of the connections between separate behaviors. However, in many cases there is an expectation that an individual will perceive behaviors to be conceptually related, specifically in terms of their compensatory (suppressing further action) or catalyzing (promoting further action) properties, as a prerequisite for both negative and positive spillover. Despite this, relatively little research has been carried out to assess the beliefs that may underpin spillover processes as held by individuals themselves, or to measure these directly. We develop and evaluate a survey-based instrument for this purpose, doing so in a sample of seven countries worldwide: Brazil, China, Denmark, India, Poland, South Africa, and the United Kingdom (approx. 1,000 respondents per country). This approach allows us to assess these measures and to compare findings between countries. As part of this, we consider the connections between beliefs about behavioral relationships, and other key variables such as pro-environmental identity and personal preferences. We observe higher levels of endorsement of compensatory beliefs than previous research, and even higher levels of endorsement of novel items assessing catalyzing beliefs. For the first time, we present evidence of the validity of such measures with respect to comparable constructs, and in relation to people’s consistency across different types of behaviors. We reflect on the implications of considering the relationships between behaviors in the context of people’s subjective beliefs and offer recommendations for developing this line of research in the broader context of spillover research and within a cross-cultural framework.
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spelling pubmed-65366242019-06-04 Compensatory and Catalyzing Beliefs: Their Relationship to Pro-environmental Behavior and Behavioral Spillover in Seven Countries Capstick, Stuart Whitmarsh, Lorraine Nash, Nick Haggar, Paul Lord, Josh Front Psychol Psychology There is growing research interest in behavioral spillover and its potential for enabling more widespread lifestyle change than has typically been achieved through discrete behavioral interventions. There are some routes by which spillover could take place without conscious attention or explicit recognition of the connections between separate behaviors. However, in many cases there is an expectation that an individual will perceive behaviors to be conceptually related, specifically in terms of their compensatory (suppressing further action) or catalyzing (promoting further action) properties, as a prerequisite for both negative and positive spillover. Despite this, relatively little research has been carried out to assess the beliefs that may underpin spillover processes as held by individuals themselves, or to measure these directly. We develop and evaluate a survey-based instrument for this purpose, doing so in a sample of seven countries worldwide: Brazil, China, Denmark, India, Poland, South Africa, and the United Kingdom (approx. 1,000 respondents per country). This approach allows us to assess these measures and to compare findings between countries. As part of this, we consider the connections between beliefs about behavioral relationships, and other key variables such as pro-environmental identity and personal preferences. We observe higher levels of endorsement of compensatory beliefs than previous research, and even higher levels of endorsement of novel items assessing catalyzing beliefs. For the first time, we present evidence of the validity of such measures with respect to comparable constructs, and in relation to people’s consistency across different types of behaviors. We reflect on the implications of considering the relationships between behaviors in the context of people’s subjective beliefs and offer recommendations for developing this line of research in the broader context of spillover research and within a cross-cultural framework. Frontiers Media S.A. 2019-05-21 /pmc/articles/PMC6536624/ /pubmed/31164844 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00963 Text en Copyright © 2019 Capstick, Whitmarsh, Nash, Haggar and Lord. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Capstick, Stuart
Whitmarsh, Lorraine
Nash, Nick
Haggar, Paul
Lord, Josh
Compensatory and Catalyzing Beliefs: Their Relationship to Pro-environmental Behavior and Behavioral Spillover in Seven Countries
title Compensatory and Catalyzing Beliefs: Their Relationship to Pro-environmental Behavior and Behavioral Spillover in Seven Countries
title_full Compensatory and Catalyzing Beliefs: Their Relationship to Pro-environmental Behavior and Behavioral Spillover in Seven Countries
title_fullStr Compensatory and Catalyzing Beliefs: Their Relationship to Pro-environmental Behavior and Behavioral Spillover in Seven Countries
title_full_unstemmed Compensatory and Catalyzing Beliefs: Their Relationship to Pro-environmental Behavior and Behavioral Spillover in Seven Countries
title_short Compensatory and Catalyzing Beliefs: Their Relationship to Pro-environmental Behavior and Behavioral Spillover in Seven Countries
title_sort compensatory and catalyzing beliefs: their relationship to pro-environmental behavior and behavioral spillover in seven countries
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6536624/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31164844
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00963
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