Abstract
Adolescents today face the negative outcomes of climate change, and their pro-environmental behavior is crucial to mitigate these negative outcomes. Yet, we know little about what influences adolescents’ pro-environmental behavior. Research shows that people’s biospheric values and environmental self-identity, elicit personal norms to act environmentally friendly, which can induce a wide range of pro-environmental actions. Yet there is no evidence that these factors can influence pro-environmental behavior of adolescents, because this has only been studied for adults. Given that in adolescence, values, identities and moral structures undergo intense development, the question is whether these factors can motivate adolescents to act pro-environmentally. To address this question, we have conducted three studies with adolescents in Lithuania (Study 1: N = 256; Study 2: N = 349; Study 3: N = 905). We found support that adolescents’ biospheric values and environmental self-identity were associated, via personal norms, with a wide range of pro-environmental behaviors, including recycling, environmentally friendly traveling, purchasing environmentally friendly goods and drinking tap water. Based on theory and the current findings, we suggest directions for policies aimed at promoting pro-environmental behavior of adolescents.
Highlights
Like no other generation, the youth today are exposed to grand environmental challenges (Faustini, 2014)
The model of the relationships between biospheric values, environmental self-identity, personal norms and the three types of pro-environmental behaviors fitted the data sufficiently well [recycling: χ2(df) = 55.85(39), p = 0.04, CFI/TLI = 0.96/0.95, RMSEA [90% CI] = 0.04 [0.01,0.06]; environmentally friendly traveling: χ2(df) = 57.13(39), p = 0.03, CFI/TLI = 0.96/0.95, RMSEA [90% CI] = 0.04 [0.01,0.07]; and purchasing environmentally friendly products: χ2(df) = 64.19(39), p = 0.01, CFI/TLI = 0.95/0.92, RMSEA [90% CI] = 0.05 [0.03,0.07]; Figure 3]
Biospheric values were indirectly related to the three pro-environmental behaviors via environmental self-identity and personal norms (Table 2)
Summary
The youth today are exposed to grand environmental challenges (Faustini, 2014). Adolescents worldwide are rising and initiating social movements to urge policy makers to tackle environmental challenges such as climate change (e.g., Fridays for Future) This may signal that today’s youth are concerned about the anthropogenic climate change and hold moral standards that motivate them to act pro-environmentally. Adolescents’ values, identity and moral structures undergo intense development and Environmental Considerations of Adolescents are not stable yet (Moshman, 1999; Wigfield et al, 2006) This raises a question to what extent, if at all, adolescents hold personal norms to act pro-environmentally that are rooted in their biospheric values and environmental selfidentity. Such knowledge is needed to develop evidence-based age-tailored policies to foster adolescents’ pro-environmental behavior (United Nations General Assembly [UNGA], 2018)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
