Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2020
Department
Department of Psychology
Department
Department of Psychology
Abstract
The present research investigated whether age-related differences in connectedness with nature in adolescence are associated with pro-environmental behavior across two cultures, Canada (N = 325) and China (N = 363). While older adolescents demonstrated lower connectedness with nature in both countries, pro-environmental behavior was inversely associated with age only in Canada but not in China. To investigate this cultural difference, we conducted a moderated mediation analysis. Positive self-evaluative emotion expectancies (pride/satisfaction) for engaging in pro-environmental behavior were found to mediate the interaction effect of culture and age when predicting pro-environmental behavior for Chinese but not for Canadian adolescents. The present research suggests that the development of pro-environmental behavior is contextually bounded and multi-directional. Effective promotion of pro-environmental behavior in adolescence should target culturally specific mechanisms, may it be connectedness with nature or moral emotions.
Recommended Citation
Krettenauer, T., Wan, W., Jia, F., & Yin, Y. (2020). Connectedness with nature and the decline of sustainable behavior in adolescence: A comparison of Canada and China. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 71, 101348. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2019.101348