LE3 .A278 2015

2015

Bolton, Amanda

Acadia University

Bachelor of Science

Honours

Psychology

Psychology

Individual differences pertaining to environmental behaviours (EBs) were analyzed in this three-phase study. An environmental program called No Impact Week was the focus of this study, which encouraged participants to engage in EBs such as lowering energy use and choosing local food. This allowed the researchers to examine factors related to initial EBs, behaviour change after the program, and the maintenance of these behaviours a couple months after the program in a sample of university students. The main focus was the relationship between motivation and EBs and the mediation effect of self-efficacy on this relationship. Intrinsic motivation was found to be the best predictor of engaging in EBs and evidence of potential mediation between self-efficacy and its effect on the relationship between motivation and EBs was visible. Other factors including connection to nature, environmental attitude, and environmental concern were related to initial EBs. Due to small sample sizes, the analyses of environmental behaviour change were difficult and hypotheses about behaviour maintenance were not analyzed.

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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:1266