Why Acting Environmentally-Friendly Feels Good:Exploring the Role of Self-Image

Recent research suggests that engagement in environmentally-friendly behavior can feel good. Current explanations for such a link do not focus on the nature of environmentally-friendly behavior itself, but rather propose well-being is more or less a side-benefit; behaviors that benefit environmental quality (e.g. spending one’s money on people rather than products) also tend to make us feel good. We propose that the moral nature of environmentally-friendly behavior itself may elicit positive emotions as well, because engaging in this behavior can signal one is an environmentally-friendly and thus a good person. Our results show that engagement in environmentally-friendly behavior can indeed affect how people see themselves: participants saw themselves as being more environmentally-friendly when they engaged in more environmentally-friendly behavior (Study 1). Furthermore, environmentally-friendly behavior resulted in a more positive self-image, more strongly when it was voluntarily engaged in, compared to when it was driven by situational constraints (Study 2). In turn, the more environmentally-friendly (Study 1) and positive (Study 2) people saw themselves, the better they felt about acting environmentally-friendly. Together, these results suggest that the specific self-signal that ensues from engaging in environmentally-friendly behavior can explain why environmentally-friendly actions may elicit a good feeling

Why going green feels good

Re​cent re​search found that when asked ex​plic​itly, peo​ple as​so​ci​ate (fu​ture) sus​tain​able ac​tions with pos​i​‐ tive in​stead of neg​a​tive emo​tions. This em​pir​i​cal find​ing im​plies that pol​icy mak​ers could har​ness peo​ple's in​trin​sic mo​ti​va​tion to pro​mote sus​tain​able ac​tions. It is how​ever not clear where this as​so​ci​a​tion be​tween sus​tain​able ac​tions and pos​i​tive emo​tions stems from. Why would peo​ple re​port that go​ing green feels good, given that such ac​tions of​ten re​quire more ef​fort or in​con​ve​nience? We ar​gue and show that the pre​‐ vi​ously found re​la​tion​ship be​tween sus​tain​able ac​tions and an​tic​i​pated pos​i​tive emo​tions is not merely a mat​ter of so​cial de​sir​abil​ity, but rather a mat​ter of mean​ing: act​ing sus​tain​ably is of​ten per​ceived as a moral choice and thus as a mean​ing​ful course of ac​tion, which can elicit pos​i​tive emo​tions. Specif​i​cally, we found that par​tic​i​pants also as​so​ci​ate sus​tain​able ac​tions with pos​i​tive in​stead of neg​a​tive emo​tions when us​ing an im​plicit as​so​ci​a​tion mea​sure – one that re​duces the like​li​hood of so​cially de​sir​able re​sponses (Study 1). More​over, par​tic​i​pants an​tic​i​pated more in​tense emo​tions when those ac​tions were mean​ing​ful to them: they felt more pos​i​tive about sus​tain​able ac​tions, and more neg​a​tive about un​sus​tain​able ac​tions, when they chose to en​gage in those ac​tions and when those ac​tions are con​sid​ered per​son​ally rel​e​vant to the in​di​vid​ual (Study 2). To​gether, these stud​ies ex​plain why act​ing green feels good, and sup​port the no​‐ tion that sus​tain​able ac​tions are in​deed ex​pected (not merely re​ported) to be in​trin​si​cally mo​ti​vat​ing

Corrigendum to “Why going green feels good.” [Journal of Environmental Psychology (2020), Volume 71, 101492]

The authors would like to note the following corrections to the final version of the above-mentioned article: Fig. 1 in the published article accidentally displayed the means for the negative emotions, instead of the positive emotions. The corrected Figure 1 (see below) displays the appropriate means: those for the positive emotions. [Figure presented] Fig. 1. Anticipated positive emotions after engagement in volitional and non-volitional (un-)sustainable behavior. Error bars denote standard errors. The authors would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused