Associations of pro-environmental behaviours with hedonic and eudemonic wellbeing among young, working adults from three European nations

Journal Paper by Natasha Parker, Tim Kasser, Birgitta Gatersleben and Angela Druckman
European Journal of Applied Positive Psychology European Journal of Applied Positive Psychology, Vol 5 | December 2021

Summary

Background: A growing body of research demonstrates that wellbeing is positively correlated with ecologically sustainable behaviours, yet there is still much to understand about the nature of this association. There is a lack of clarity in the extant research as to whether pro-environmental behaviours have a stronger or more consistent relationship with pleasure-based, hedonic wellbeing or with virtue-based, eudemonic wellbeing. It is also unclear if a third variable, materialism, which has consistently been linked to lower wellbeing and engagement in fewer pro-environmental behaviours, might explain the co-occurrence of these variables.

Method: The current study addresses these questions in a survey of young working adults across three European nations: the UK, Italy, and Hungary.

Results: The results showed that pro-environmental behaviours were positively associated with wellbeing in all three countries, including two nations (Italy and Hungary) where this relationship had not previously been studied. Pro-environmental behaviours were positively associated with both hedonic and eudemonic wellbeing, with no difference in the strengths of the associations. Hedonic wellbeing was more consistently associated with pro-environmental behaviours than was eudemonic well-being across the three nations. The study found that materialism did not explain the relationship between pro-environmental behaviours and wellbeing. It also demonstrated that a range of demographic factors did not diminish the size of the relationship between pro-environmental behaviours and wellbeing.

Conclusions: The findings suggest that pro-environmental behaviours are not only compatible with wellbeing due to a virtuous sense of “doing good,” but they may be inherently pleasurable. The paper discusses the implications of this finding for two explanations of why wellbeing and pro-environmental behaviours are related.

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