Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-07
Abstract： Pro-environmental behavior, such as saving energy and taking public transportation, is beneficial to protecting the environment. Previous studies suggested that personality traits, environmentalrelated values, beliefs, affect and norms are antecedents of pro-environmental behavior. However, protecting the environment is also rooted in motivation for happiness and well-being. Generally speaking, there are three different types of well-being in positive psychology, namely hedonic, eudaimonic, and psychological richness. Based on different conceptions of well-being, research has shown that hedonic value was negatively related to pro-environmental behavior. Eudaimonic value was related to environmental values but it cannot directly predict pro-environmental behavior. Given it’s a new conception, the relationship between psychological richness and pro-environmental behavior is still absent. Thus, the present study aimed at exploring how psychological richness would influence pro-environmental behavior as well as its underlying mechanism and boundary conditions. To reach the goals, we conducted ten studies with different experimental manipulations of psychological richness, multi-source participants, and various assessments of pro-environmental behavior. In correlational study 1.1, we tested the link between psychological richness and proenvironmental behavior. In experimental study 1.2–1.4, we manipulated psychological richness by recalling past memory and making the perspective change to explore its potential influence on proenvironmental behavior. In study 2.1–2.4, the measurement-of-mediation design and experimentalcausal-chain design were used to examine the mediating role of self-expansion. Based on the crosssectional study 2.1, in study 2.2 we randomly assigned participants to the psychological richness condition and control condition to complete the task, and investigated whether psychological richness affected personal self-expansion. In study 2.3, self-expansion was manipulated to explore its effect on pro-environmental behavior. To support our model, study 2.4 was conducted to test whether psychological richness facilitates pro-environmental behavior through self-expansion. To investigate the moderating effect of nature-self size, we manipulated psychological richness in study 3.1 and conducted a cross-sectional survey in 3.2. As predicted, the present study found that both psychologically rich life and state psychological richness were positively related to pro-environmental behavior. Results indicated that psychological richness motivates people to behave in an environmentally friendly. The increased self-expansion was the reason why people experiencing psychological richness were more willing to protect the environment. Lastly, the results also demonstrated the moderating effect of nature-self size on the association of self-expansion and pro-environmental behavior. Overall, the results extend the research on the effects of psychological richness on personal growth and sustainable social development. First, the research suggested that pursuing well-being and behaving pro-environmentally were not in conflict. By taking the newly constructed psychological richness, living a good life motivates people to protect the environment. Second, message framing promoting psychological richness could be used to encourage individuals from engaging in environmentally friendly activities.
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