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Outcome expectancies moderate the association between worry about climate change and personal energy-saving behaviors

This paper explores whether efficacy beliefs can alter the relationship between worry about climate change and personal energy-saving behaviors, controlling for climate change beliefs and socio-demographics. For this purpose, we used data from 23 countries that participated in the European Social Su...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Gregersen, Thea, Doran, Rouven, Böhm, Gisela, Poortinga, Wouter
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8153492/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34038456
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252105
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author Gregersen, Thea
Doran, Rouven
Böhm, Gisela
Poortinga, Wouter
author_facet Gregersen, Thea
Doran, Rouven
Böhm, Gisela
Poortinga, Wouter
author_sort Gregersen, Thea
collection PubMed
description This paper explores whether efficacy beliefs can alter the relationship between worry about climate change and personal energy-saving behaviors, controlling for climate change beliefs and socio-demographics. For this purpose, we used data from 23 countries that participated in the European Social Survey Round 8 (N = 44 387). Worry about climate change, personal efficacy, personal outcome expectancy, and collective outcome expectancy were each associated with personal energy-saving behaviors concerning either energy curtailment or energy efficiency. The results further show that outcome expectancies moderate the association between worry about climate change and both types of energy behaviors. Worry was more strongly related to energy curtailment behaviors among those with high levels of personal and collective outcome expectancy. A similar pattern was found for energy efficiency behaviors, which were more strongly predicted by worry about climate change when combined with high levels of collective outcome expectancy. These findings are relevant for climate change communication, especially informational campaigns aiming to lower overall household energy use.
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spelling pubmed-81534922021-06-09 Outcome expectancies moderate the association between worry about climate change and personal energy-saving behaviors Gregersen, Thea Doran, Rouven Böhm, Gisela Poortinga, Wouter PLoS One Research Article This paper explores whether efficacy beliefs can alter the relationship between worry about climate change and personal energy-saving behaviors, controlling for climate change beliefs and socio-demographics. For this purpose, we used data from 23 countries that participated in the European Social Survey Round 8 (N = 44 387). Worry about climate change, personal efficacy, personal outcome expectancy, and collective outcome expectancy were each associated with personal energy-saving behaviors concerning either energy curtailment or energy efficiency. The results further show that outcome expectancies moderate the association between worry about climate change and both types of energy behaviors. Worry was more strongly related to energy curtailment behaviors among those with high levels of personal and collective outcome expectancy. A similar pattern was found for energy efficiency behaviors, which were more strongly predicted by worry about climate change when combined with high levels of collective outcome expectancy. These findings are relevant for climate change communication, especially informational campaigns aiming to lower overall household energy use. Public Library of Science 2021-05-26 /pmc/articles/PMC8153492/ /pubmed/34038456 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252105 Text en © 2021 Gregersen et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Gregersen, Thea
Doran, Rouven
Böhm, Gisela
Poortinga, Wouter
Outcome expectancies moderate the association between worry about climate change and personal energy-saving behaviors
title Outcome expectancies moderate the association between worry about climate change and personal energy-saving behaviors
title_full Outcome expectancies moderate the association between worry about climate change and personal energy-saving behaviors
title_fullStr Outcome expectancies moderate the association between worry about climate change and personal energy-saving behaviors
title_full_unstemmed Outcome expectancies moderate the association between worry about climate change and personal energy-saving behaviors
title_short Outcome expectancies moderate the association between worry about climate change and personal energy-saving behaviors
title_sort outcome expectancies moderate the association between worry about climate change and personal energy-saving behaviors
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8153492/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34038456
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252105
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