ERIC Number: EJ1073790
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2015
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1350-4622
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Available Date: N/A
Seeing the Forest as Well as the Trees: General vs. Specific Predictors of Environmental Behavior
Carmi, Nurit; Arnon, Sara; Orion, Nir
Environmental Education Research, v21 n7 p1011-1028 2015
The domain of environmental protection is comprised from many sub-domains as recycling, conserving water, or reducing the consumption of energy. The attitude-behavior gap is partly explained by the gap between the specificity levels of the particular measured behavior and of its antecedent(s). The present study aimed at assessing the effects of general vs. domain-specific behavior's proximal antecedents included in the theory of planned behavior (TPB) model (intentions, attitudes towards the behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control) on performance of specific environmental behaviors (EBs) in five environmental sub-domains. We found that in all of the environmental domains examined, a specifically worded TPB model predicted specific behaviors better than a generally worded TPB model did. However, the magnitude of the improvement varied among behavioral domains and the improvement did not arise from the same TPB elements in every domain. The implications for environmental education and for EB research are discussed.
Descriptors: Predictor Variables, Environmental Education, Environmental Influences, Intention, Social Attitudes, Norms, Behavior Change, Models, Predictive Validity, Behavior Theories, Questionnaires, Student Surveys, Item Analysis, Comparative Analysis, Effect Size, College Students, Attitude Measures, Behavioral Science Research, Student Attitudes, Foreign Countries
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Israel
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Author Affiliations: N/A