Measurement and determinants of environmentally significant consumer behavior
Abstract
Measures of proenvironmental behavior in psychological studies do not always reflect the actual environmental impact of a person or household. Therefore, the results of these studies provide little insight into variables that could be helpful in reducing household environmental impact. In this article, an environmentally significant measure of household consumer behavior (i.e., combined direct and indirect energy use) is presented and compared with a common social science measure of proenvironmental behavior (based on popular notions of environmentally significant behavior). Two large-scale field studies were conducted among representative samples of Dutch households. The results showed respondents who indicate they behave more proenvironmentally do not necessarily use less energy. Also, proenvironmental behavior is more strongly related to attitudinal variables, whereas household energy use is primarily related to variables such as income and household size. More multidisciplinary research seems necessary to identify variables that influence the actual environmental impact of household consumer behavior.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Cognitive and intra-personal factors are only partly able to predict intention and to a lesser extent actual behaviour.
“However, these cognitive and intra-personal factors are only partly able to predict intention and e to a lesser extent e actual behaviour (Gatersleben et al., 2002;Stancu et al., 2016).”
From Food waste matters - A systematic review of household food waste practices and their policy implications (2018) · cites this paper as Gatersleben et al., 2002
Cites
New Environmental Theories: Toward a Coherent Theory of Environmentally Significant Behavior
Stern, P. C. (2000) · Journal of Social Issues · doi:10.1111/0022-4537.00175 · Cited by 8,682 · see citing works
Influences on Attitude-Behavior Relationships: A Natural Experiment with Curbside Recycling
Guagnano, G. A., Stern, P. C., & Dietz, T. (1995) · Environment and Behavior · doi:10.1177/0013916595275005 · Cited by 1,457 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Encouraging pro-environmental behaviour: An integrative review and research agenda
Steg, L., & Vlek, C. (2009) · Journal of Environmental Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2008.10.004 · Cited by 5,089 · see citing works
Self-citationSchanes, K., Dobernig, K., & Gözet, B. (2018) · Journal of Cleaner Production · doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.02.030 · Cited by 1,365 · see citing works
“However, these cognitive and intra-personal factors are only partly able to predict intention and e to a lesser extent e actual behaviour (Gatersleben et al., 2002; Stancu et al., 2016).”
BackgroundAbrahamse, W., Steg, L., Vlek, C., & Rothengatter, T. (2007) · Journal of Environmental Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2007.08.002 · Cited by 880 · see citing works
Self-citationPsychological research and global climate change
Clayton, S., Devine-Wright, P., Stern, P. C., Whitmarsh, L., Carrico, A., Steg, L., Swim, J., & Bonnes, M. (2015) · Nature Climate Change · doi:10.1038/nclimate2622 · Cited by 601 · see citing works
Self-citationAn examination of the values that motivate socially conscious and frugal consumer behaviours
Pepper, M., Jackson, T., & Uzzell, D. (2009) · International Journal of Consumer Studies · doi:10.1111/j.1470-6431.2009.00753.x · Cited by 383 · see citing works
The relationship between environmental activism, pro-environmental behaviour and social identity.
Dono, J., Webb, J., & Richardson, B. (2010) · Journal of Environmental Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2009.11.006 · Cited by 372 · see citing works
Carfagna, L. B., Dubois, E. A., Fitzmaurice, C., Ouimette, M. Y., Schor, J. B., Willis, M., & Laidley, T. (2014) · Journal of Consumer Culture · doi:10.1177/1469540514526227 · Cited by 350 · see citing works
Consumer green behaviour: An approach towards environmental sustainability
Khan, M. S., Saengon, P., Alganad, A. M. N., Chongcharoen, D., & Farrukh, M. (2020) · Sustainable Development · doi:10.1002/sd.2066 · Cited by 175 · see citing works
- Authors
- Gatersleben, B., Steg, L., & Vlek, C.
- Affiliations
- University of Groningen (NL)
- Venue
- Environment and Behavior
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2002-05
- Volume
- 34
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 335-362
- ISSN
- 0013-9165 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-390X
- OpenAlex
- W2122593218
- Cited by
- 851
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 19 · 2025: 37 · 2024: 45 · 2023: 47 · 2022: 56 · 2021: 53 · 2020: 45 · 2019: 55 · 2018: 58 · 2017: 61 · 2016: 43 · 2015: 53 · 2014: 54 · 2013: 58 · 2012: 26
- FWCI
- 21.18
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Environment and Behavior (publishedVersion)
- University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law › Environmental Education and Sustainability
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Environmental Sustainability in Business
- Physical Sciences › Energy › Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment › Energy, Environment, and Transportation Policies
- Keywords
- pro-environmental behavior, household energy consumption, consumer behavior, environmental impact measurement, energy consumption, environmental attitudes, income, household size, Dutch households
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
