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Intrinsic motivation and pro-environmental behaviour

Nature Climate Change volume 5, pages 612–613 (2015)Cite this article

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To the Editor —

The term 'warm glow' was first introduced by economist James Andreoni in an attempt to explain why people sometimes act altruistically (for example, donate to charity)1. The theory suggests that people often act pro-socially because it is rewarding; we derive a positive emotional experience from the act of helping others (that is, a warm glow). In a recent Letter, Taufik, Bolderdijk and Steg2 show that acting green elicits a literal warm glow: people's psychological state directly influences their thermal state. In the experiment, participants who acted in an environmentally friendly way perceived significantly higher temperatures than those who did not. Importantly, the effect on perceived temperature was mediated by a positive self-signal.

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Figure 1: Daily energy consumption before, during, and after the Do-It-in-the-Dark energy conservation competition in 2014.

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Acknowledgements

Many thanks to J. Santos and the Office of Sustainability for their help in collecting and organizing the Princeton campaign data. I would also like to acknowledge the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment for their support. Special thanks to B. Chryst as well.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, Princeton University, Princeton, 08544, New Jersey, USA

    Sander van der Linden

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  1. Sander van der Linden
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Correspondence to Sander van der Linden.

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van der Linden, S. Intrinsic motivation and pro-environmental behaviour. Nature Clim Change 5, 612–613 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2669

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