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. 2023 Mar 24;11(1):79.
doi: 10.1186/s40359-023-01128-z.

Seeing past the tip of your own nose? How outward and self-centred orientations could contribute to closing the green gap despite helplessness

Magdalena Adamus  1   2 , Jakub Šrol  3 , Vladimíra Čavojová  3 , Eva Ballová Mikušková  3
Affiliations

Seeing past the tip of your own nose? How outward and self-centred orientations could contribute to closing the green gap despite helplessness

Magdalena Adamus et al. BMC Psychol. .

Abstract

Background: The present study explored moderators of the relation between environmental concerns and pro-environmental behaviour that could help close the green gap.

Methods: A sample of 500 individuals (250 women) participated in the study. Apart from socio-demographic characteristics, participants answered questions about their environmental concerns and pro-environmental behaviour, collectivism and individualism, time orientation and emotional responses to climate change.

Results: Our results corroborate the view that collectivism, future orientation and prosocial tendencies may form a single component of outward orientation, while individualism and immediate orientation form self-centred orientation. Generally, outwardly oriented individuals and those less self-centred reported more pro-environmental behaviour. However, strongly self-centred individuals, even when reporting elevated helplessness, showed increased involvement in pro-environmental behaviour once their concerns were high.

Conclusions: The study contributes to the literature by pointing out that both outward and self-centred orientations have the potential to insulate individuals against the negative effect helplessness may have on pro-environmental behaviour. This could inform strategies that would both prompt individuals already concerned to act and arouse more concern among those who are not yet preoccupied with climate change.

Keywords: Collectivism-individualism; Environmental concern; Future orientation; Green gap; Helplessness; Pro-environmental behaviour; Prosocial tendencies.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests to declare.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Estimated marginal means plot from the linear regression showing the interaction between environmental concern, helplessness, and outward orientation as predictors of pro-environmental behaviours. The three panels depict predictors at 1 SD below mean (left panel), mean (centre), and 1 SD above mean (right) in outward orientation
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Estimated marginal means plot from the linear regression showing the interaction between environmental concern, helplessness, and self-centred orientation as predictors of pro-environmental behaviours. The three panels depict predictors at 1 SD below mean (left panel), mean (centre), and 1 SD above mean (right) in self-centred orientation
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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