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How Often Do You Think About Your Relationship With Nature? The Measurement of Environmental Identity Salience and Its Relationship With Proenvironmental Behaviors

Extant research finds that environmental identity is an important motivational factor for proenvironmental behavior. However, studies typically focus on investigating the effects of the strength of this identity. Based on insights from identity research, we theorize that the influence of individuals...

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Autores principales: Rahmani, Leïla, Haasova, Simona, Czellar, Sandor, Clergue, Valentina, Martin, Christian
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9305846/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35874395
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.877978
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author Rahmani, Leïla
Haasova, Simona
Czellar, Sandor
Clergue, Valentina
Martin, Christian
author_facet Rahmani, Leïla
Haasova, Simona
Czellar, Sandor
Clergue, Valentina
Martin, Christian
author_sort Rahmani, Leïla
collection PubMed
description Extant research finds that environmental identity is an important motivational factor for proenvironmental behavior. However, studies typically focus on investigating the effects of the strength of this identity. Based on insights from identity research, we theorize that the influence of individuals’ environmental identity on their proenvironmental behavior may depend on other identity dimensions as well. We argue that the frequency of activation of environmental identity in relevant life domains—environmental identity salience—may predict proenvironmental behavior beyond what environmental identity strength can explain. To test our theorizing, we propose a parsimonious measure of environmental identity salience. In four empirical studies, we establish that the new measure has sound psychometric properties in terms of internal consistency and discriminant validity with regard to measures of environmental identity strength. Importantly, our measure of environmental identity salience reliably predicts a range of self-reported and actual proenvironmental behaviors beyond the effects of environmental identity strength. In line with theoretical predictions, our data suggests that environmental identity salience and strength are related but distinct constructs. We conclude that investigating the nature and effects of environmental identity salience leads to a fruitful path to a more comprehensive understanding of proenvironmental behavior. The proposed new measure may serve as a helpful tool in this endeavor.
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spelling pubmed-93058462022-07-23 How Often Do You Think About Your Relationship With Nature? The Measurement of Environmental Identity Salience and Its Relationship With Proenvironmental Behaviors Rahmani, Leïla Haasova, Simona Czellar, Sandor Clergue, Valentina Martin, Christian Front Psychol Psychology Extant research finds that environmental identity is an important motivational factor for proenvironmental behavior. However, studies typically focus on investigating the effects of the strength of this identity. Based on insights from identity research, we theorize that the influence of individuals’ environmental identity on their proenvironmental behavior may depend on other identity dimensions as well. We argue that the frequency of activation of environmental identity in relevant life domains—environmental identity salience—may predict proenvironmental behavior beyond what environmental identity strength can explain. To test our theorizing, we propose a parsimonious measure of environmental identity salience. In four empirical studies, we establish that the new measure has sound psychometric properties in terms of internal consistency and discriminant validity with regard to measures of environmental identity strength. Importantly, our measure of environmental identity salience reliably predicts a range of self-reported and actual proenvironmental behaviors beyond the effects of environmental identity strength. In line with theoretical predictions, our data suggests that environmental identity salience and strength are related but distinct constructs. We conclude that investigating the nature and effects of environmental identity salience leads to a fruitful path to a more comprehensive understanding of proenvironmental behavior. The proposed new measure may serve as a helpful tool in this endeavor. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-07-08 /pmc/articles/PMC9305846/ /pubmed/35874395 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.877978 Text en Copyright © 2022 Rahmani, Haasova, Czellar, Clergue and Martin. https://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
Rahmani, Leïla
Haasova, Simona
Czellar, Sandor
Clergue, Valentina
Martin, Christian
How Often Do You Think About Your Relationship With Nature? The Measurement of Environmental Identity Salience and Its Relationship With Proenvironmental Behaviors
title How Often Do You Think About Your Relationship With Nature? The Measurement of Environmental Identity Salience and Its Relationship With Proenvironmental Behaviors
title_full How Often Do You Think About Your Relationship With Nature? The Measurement of Environmental Identity Salience and Its Relationship With Proenvironmental Behaviors
title_fullStr How Often Do You Think About Your Relationship With Nature? The Measurement of Environmental Identity Salience and Its Relationship With Proenvironmental Behaviors
title_full_unstemmed How Often Do You Think About Your Relationship With Nature? The Measurement of Environmental Identity Salience and Its Relationship With Proenvironmental Behaviors
title_short How Often Do You Think About Your Relationship With Nature? The Measurement of Environmental Identity Salience and Its Relationship With Proenvironmental Behaviors
title_sort how often do you think about your relationship with nature? the measurement of environmental identity salience and its relationship with proenvironmental behaviors
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9305846/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35874395
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.877978
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