Determinants of pro-environmental behavior in a cross-national perspective: Multilevel analysis of data from the ISSP 2020 module.

This master thesis is devoted to exploring the factors affecting pro-environmental behavior. Its key purpose is to determine the direct and indirect determinants of pro-environmental behavior, operationalized as a set of actions aimed at minimizing the negative human impact on the environment. Drawing on I. Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior, S. Schwartz’s norm-activation model, and R. Inglehart and C. Welzel’s modernization theory, it formulates a set of hypotheses about potential influences of various nation- and individual-level (including socio-demographic, psychological, and attitudinal variables) factors on pro-environmental behavior. These hypotheses are tested using data from the ISSP 2020 module (Environment IV), that include 44,100 individuals from 28 countries and multi-level (hierarchical) modeling as the main research method. The first level is represented by individuals and the second is presented by countries. The results of statistical analysis of the ISSP 2020 data set indicate that three factors have a statistically significant positive direct effect on all kinds of pro-environmental behavior: level of education, commitment to post-materialist values, and pro-environmental intentions. Some of the factors considered in the study (gender, age, income level, country’s economic well-being) exhibit a significant effect only on certain types of pro-environmental behavior. In particular, women are more inclined to sort waste for recycling, to avoid buying environmentally harmful goods, and to sign petitions about environmental issues than men. Age and income level have a significant positive effect on sorting waste for recycling and avoiding environmentally harmful purchases, while these factors negatively affect signing petitions about environmental issues, participating in pro-environmental actions, demonstrations and protests. Regarding nation-level factors, country’s economic well-being positively impacts private forms of pro-environmental behavior (i.e. waste sorting and consumers behavior), signing petitions and donating pro-environmental organizations. The structure of the thesis is as follows. The first chapter discusses existing research relevant to the topic and summarize its core empirical findings. The second chapter presents main theoretical traditions in research of behavior (including pro-environmental behavior). The third chapter describes the data set, operationalization of all variables, and methods of statistical analysis used in the paper. The fourth chapter presents and interpret the empirical results. Finally, the concluding section provides a summary of the entire study and outline directions for further research.