Abetting or Thwarting: The Mediating Role of Subjective Enablers and Constraints in the Pro-Environmental Attitude-Behavior Relationship: An Abstract

The daily consumption decisions made by billions of people exert a huge toll on the environment. Addressing environmental degradation requires shifting consumer behavior, and researchers have applied theories to grasp the nature and likelihood of enacting pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs). Behavioral volition and ascription of responsibility are two pillars supporting environmental locus-of-control (ELOC)—ones’ perceptions regarding personal (internal) and external capabilities and accountabilities with regard to bringing about pro-environmental outcomes. Consumers recognizing and accepting this personal responsibility, and empowering themselves to act in kind, are high on internal ELOC (i.e., INELOC). Studies show that INELOC levels substantially predict consumers’ propensity to enact a broad swath of PEBs. What is missing is comprehending the mechanisms bridging the gap between INELOC and PEBs. Knowledge about pro-environmental initiatives is necessary but insufficient. General constructs like environmental attitudes tend to be poor predictors of concrete behaviors, since they are conceived at different levels of abstraction. Studies scrutinizing how consumer attitudes, perceptions of situational factors, and behavioral outcomes function in a sequence are lacking.