Abstract
Social change can be pursued by participating in a public protest, joining a community gardening initiative, or recycling at home. However, little research has investigated how individual differences in values relate to people’s engagement in different types of social change actions in the context of pro-environmental behavior. We hypothesized that values would be differentially related to different types of social change actions, based on different goals that each of these actions may have (e.g., changing one’s own behavior or influencing others). A survey among people engaged in pro-environmental activism during the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference supported our predictions. Specifically, we found that individual behavior and community-based actions were uniquely related to biospheric values (i.e., a key concern for nature and the environment). However, other social change actions (e.g., public protest) were uniquely related to altruistic values (i.e., a key concern for the welfare of all people), and pro-environmental lobbying was positively related to egoistic values (i.e., a key concern for power and achievement). Our findings suggest that different behaviors directed at pro-environmental social change may be based on different values. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.
Highlights
People pursuing social change can do so by engaging in different actions to support their cause: they can join a public protest, engage in lobbying to influence authorities, or change their own individual behavior, for example, by recycling or saving energy in their household
We compared the value orientations of participants who did not fill in the social change action items (N = 44) to those who did; participants with missing answers only differed in that they endorsed egoistic values to a slightly higher extent
We found egoistic values to be negatively related to civil disobedience as well, suggesting that people engage in civil disobedience the more they endorse altruistic values and the less strongly they endorse egoistic values (Table 3)
Summary
People pursuing social change can do so by engaging in different actions to support their cause: they can join a public protest, engage in lobbying to influence authorities, or change their own individual behavior, for example, by recycling or saving energy in their household. Values are considered to be universal guiding principles in people’s lives and thereby not bound by context (Rokeach, 1973; Schwartz, 1992), research suggests that people often fail to Values as a Basis for Social Change relate their important values to their actions (Maio et al, 2001, 2009). One explanation for this value-behavior gap is that some behaviors may be more typical expressions of a particular value than others (Maio, 2010). By integrating research on individual values and social change, we aim to investigate the differential motivational basis for these actions among those who engage in pro-environmental social change
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