Twenty years after Hines, Hungerford, and Tomera: A new meta-analysis of psycho-social determinants of pro-environmental behaviour
Introduction
It is now 20 years ago that Hines, Hungerford, and Tomera (1986/87) published their meta-analysis of research on responsible environmental behaviour. The goal of this analysis was not only to identify variables reliably associated with pro-environmental behaviour, but also to determine quantitatively the strengths of these relationships. This was the reason why Hines et al. use the quantitative meta-analysis approach for research synthesis. The literature search conducted by Hines et al. resulted in a list of 128 primary studies which assessed variables in association with pro-environmental behaviour and reported the information needed for including them in a meta-analysis. A great share of these 128 studies concentrates on the relation between pro-environmental behaviour and socio-structural variables. However, a small number of these studies (Hines et al. do not report the exact number) analyse the association between the four psycho-social variables attitude, locus of control/self-efficacy, moral responsibility, behavioural intention and pro-environmental behaviour.
The meta-analytical results of Hines et al. concerning the average bivariate association of these four psycho-social variables with pro-environmental behaviour provide the starting point of the present research: Based on 9 studies Hines et al. found a mean correlation between pro-environmental attitudes and pro-environmental behaviour of r=.38, between locus of control/self-efficacy and pro-environmental behaviour of r=.37 (15 studies); between the felt moral obligation to behave in a pro-environmental way and pro-environmental behaviour of r=.33 (6 studies), and between pro-environmental behavioural intention and pro-environmental behaviour of r=.49 (6 studies).
Against the background of their meta-analytical results, Hines et al. (1986/87) proposed a model of environmental behaviour which views the intention to act and objective situational factor as direct determinants of pro-environmental behaviour. Intention itself is viewed as summarising the interplay of cognitive (action skills, knowledge of action strategies and issues) as well as personality variables (attitudes, locus of control, and personal responsibility).
In the following decade, the meta-analysis conducted by Hines et al. exerted a strong impact on the further research on psycho-social determinants of pro-environmental behaviour. Using modern statistical methods for synthesising results of a body of primary studies it provided convincing empirical evidence for the utility of psycho-social variables as predictors of pro-environmental behaviour. This finding encouraged many researchers to continue their research on psycho-social determinants of pro-environmental behaviours.
Section snippets
The present research
It is astonishing that despite the impact of this first meta-analysis to the best of our knowledge no further meta-analyses of research on pro-environmental behaviour have been published since 1986. Lack of new research cannot be the reason for this gap. Since the work of Hines et al. a steady stream of primary studies analysing determinants of pro-environmental behaviour has been published. A meta-analysis of these more recent studies is urgently needed, not only because of the long time that
The theoretical model
Pro-environmental behaviour is probably best viewed as a mixture of self-interest (e.g., to pursue a strategy that minimises one's own health risk) and of concern for other people, the next generation, other species, or whole eco-systems (e.g., preventing air pollution that may cause risks for others’ health and/or the global climate). This mixture of self-interest and pro-social motives is also reflected by the theoretical models most frequently applied for explaining pro-environmental
Data collection
As it was our goal to conduct a meta-analytical test of the above-described integrative theoretical model, we primarily searched for studies applying the NAM, TPB or similar models to pro-environmental behaviour and that were published in peer-reviewed journals. Because the TPB as well as the NAM provides clear definitions and operationalisations of the theoretical constructs we are interested in, researchers applying these frameworks should use similar items for measuring the respective
Results
Table 1 presents the information (number of available independent primary bivariate correlation coefficients and the pooled total sample size on which these coefficients are based) extracted from the 57 samples included in our meta-analysis. Table 1 impressively demonstrates the above mentioned missing values problem one is often confronted with when conducting an MASEM analysis. Because our proposed integrated theoretical model contains 9 variables, 36 pooled mean correlations are necessary
Discussion and conclusion
The goal of the present paper is a replication as well as an extension of the meta-analysis on psycho-social determinants of pro-environmental behaviours published 20 years ago by Hines et al. Extension means that the aim was not only to report a matrix of pooled bivariate correlations but to use these correlations for an MASEM test of the postulated integrated model of psycho-social determinants of pro-environmental behaviour. Such a theory-driven multivariate meta-analytical approach reflects
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