Secure and sustainable but not as prominent among the ambivalent: Attachment style and proenvironmental consumption

Abstract

Human activity has degraded the environment and contributed to numerous public health hazards. Thus, the United Nations recently made an urgent call to develop sustainable consumption practices. Although existing literature has acknowledged attachment style as a potential predictor of certain consumption responses, its influence on proenvironmental consumption has not yet been examined. We conducted a large-sampled study (N = 1397) on this topic and found securely attached individuals to report significantly higher scores on a scale measuring proenvironmental consumption compared to people with anxious/ambivalent and avoidant attachment styles, respectively. The latter two groups did not differ significantly, although anxious/ambivalent individuals reported the lowest average propensity to buy and use goods and services sustainably. Our findings provide preliminary evidence for the notion that attachment styles may meaningfully predict proenvironmental consumption responses. Given that modern psychometric tools can predict Big Five personality traits from digital behavioral footprints, these tools may also predict a person's attachment style and thus facilitate more effective, tailor-made communication campaigns to promote sustainable consumption.