Abstract
Environmental education programs neglect the aspect of prosocial behavior as a correlate of pro-environmental behavior. This article examines the possible benefits of increasing the emphasis on prosocial behavior as a way to reinforce environmental education. In our study, prosocial behavior was positively related to pro-environmental behavior (r = 0.34, p < 0.001), and even a combined scale consisting of prosocial and pro-environmental behavior items showed an acceptable reliability (separation reliability = 0.82, at the level of the separated scales), which implies that prosocial and pro-environmental behaviors are a similar class of behavior. We can assume that the two underlying propensities (prosocial behavior and pro-environmentalism) are probably only two facets of an overarching common propensity that supports both kinds of behavior. Therefore, promoting one facet will, through its relationship with the other facet, also foster the respective other facet. Even more so, it might be most effective to relate to both propensities equally.
Highlights
With the increase in the global population and the expansion of technology, human beings are facing several environmental challenges on a global scale: climate change, ecosystem destruction, loss of biodiversity, soil erosion, decreased natural food resources, and energy and water scarcity, among others [1]
Pro-environmental behavior is related to environmental knowledge [12,13,14], connectedness to nature [15,16], and prosocial behavior [6,7,17]
Despite the existence of altruism and prosocial behavior models for the prediction of pro-environmental behavior [8], environmental education programs do not sufficiently discuss the aspect of prosocial behavior—which is defined as voluntary behavior intended to benefit others or promote harmonious relationships with others [22,23] as a correlate of pro-environmental behavior
Summary
With the increase in the global population and the expansion of technology, human beings are facing several environmental challenges on a global scale: climate change, ecosystem destruction, loss of biodiversity, soil erosion, decreased natural food resources, and energy and water scarcity, among others [1]. We propose that environmental education should broaden its focus to emphasize human relations. We call this addition “prosocial education” [5], education that promotes openness, compassion, care, and responsibility for the other, and argue that it can add an important perspective to environmental education. In an attempt to explain this discrepancy, this article will not deal with the first two correlates of pro-environmental behavior, i.e., increasing the student’s environmental knowledge and promoting the student’s sense of connectedness to nature. It is important to note, that environmental education programs commonly focus on increasing students’ environmental knowledge [18,19] and promoting their sense of connectedness to nature [20,21]. A search for the terms, “prosocial behavior”, “prosocial”, “altruism”, or “altruistic” in the leading journals dedicated to environmental education (Environmental Education Research, Journal of Environmental Education, Australian Journal of Environmental Education, and International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education) produced very few results [24,25]
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