Abstract
The meat industry is a leading cause of climate change in the Western world, and while reducing meat consumption has often been studied as a health behavior, it is equally important to understand its significance as a pro-environmental behavior. In a national sample of the United Kingdom (N = 737, Time 1, N = 468, Time 2) we sought to evaluate to what extent the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) is an effective model for understanding people’s intentions to reduce their meat consumption. Overall, we find that attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived control explain 57% of the variation in intentions to reduce meat consumption. In turn, past behavior and intention explain 31% of the variance in self-reported meat consumption behavior four weeks later. Somewhat surprisingly, habit did not have any predictive utility over and above the TPB constructs. The effectiveness of the TPB and implications for devising pro-environmental interventions are discussed.
Highlights
Climate change is continuing to be at the forefront of much scientific and political discussion
Subjective norms, and PBC —the three components of Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) that contribute to the formation of intentions—we looked at gender as well as past behaviors and habit formation related to meat consumption using online surveys administered in two waves that were four weeks apart in a national sample of the UK population
We found mixed evidence relating to our four hypotheses but overall our results demonstrate that the TPB is a good model for explaining reductions in meat consumption as a pro-environmental behavior
Summary
Climate change is continuing to be at the forefront of much scientific and political discussion. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2018) reports that “human activities have [contributed up to] 1.0°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels” (p.6), which has already begun to cause changes in land and ocean ecosystems (IPCC 2018). Human activity is a significant contributor to global warming and climate change, both at the individual and societal level (Gardner and Stern 2002; de Groot and Steg 2008; van der Linden et al 2015). It is challenging for individuals to understand the impact of their lifestyle choices and daily consumer behaviors on the environment, these are, some of the major drivers of climate change (Roy and Pal 2009; Chan and Bishop 2013). The negative consequences of climate change often seem too “distant in time and place” (Harland et al 1999, p. 2505; Palomo-Vélez et al 2018)
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