1. Valuing Wealth, Power, and Achievement: Self-Enhancing Values and Environmental Behavior Wesley Schultz California State University Presentation delivered at the 26th International Congress of Applied Psychology, Athens, Greece. Address correspondences to: Wesley Schultz, Department of Psychology, California State University, San Marcos, CA, 92096. USA. Wschultz@csusm.edu. (760) 750-8045.Wschultz@csusm.edu July 18, 2006

2. Values Long history in psychology (and social science) with little agreement Economic value Price someone is willing to pay for a good or service. Overvalued, undervalued “By values, we mean the entire constellation of a person's attitudes, beliefs, opinions, hopes, fears, prejudices, needs, desires, and aspirations that, taken together, govern how one behaves.” (Mitchell, 1983; VALS project) Life goals. Standards which serve as a guiding principle in a person’s life. (Schwartz, 1992)

3. Norm Activation Values are the wellspring of attitudes, beliefs, and behavior Individuals often hold conflicting values Values that are “activated” are stronger predictors of behavior Norm-activation model of altruism (Schwartz) Same behavior can be a manifestation of very different values (Stern’s VBN Theory) V ego (AC ego ) + V alt (AC alt ) + V bio (AC bio ) = behavior

4. The Inclusion Model Biospheric Motives Egoistic Motive Behavior + + Inclusion Separate from nature Connected to nature Rational Choice Psychological Inclusion

5. Schwartz’s Values Scale Please rate each as “A GUIDING PRINCIPLE IN MY LIFE”

6. Predicting Environmental Behavior Schultz & Zelezny (1998) Self-transcendence r=.24 Self-enhancement r=-.19 Consistent pattern across 5 countries Also evidence for norm activation (for ST only) Similar pattern reported in other studies: Grunert and Juhl (1995) Karp (1996) Nordlund & Garvill (2002)

7. Can valuing self lead to conservation? Maybe egoistic values just need to be “activated” Participants: 988 students from six countries Brazil, Czech Republic, Germany, India, New Zealand, Russia Self-reported environmental behavior (12) Environmental motives (ego, alt, bio) Schwartz’ values Self-transcendence / enhancement Awareness of consequences Global (should activate self-transcendence) Local (should activate self-enhancement)

8. Results? - Environmental Concerns Multi-group CFA showed good evidence for structural equivalence across countries Self-enhancement: r=+.16 egoistic, r=-.12 biospheric Self-transcendence: r=-.28 egoistic, r=+.24 biospheric Consistent across all six countries

9. Results? - Proenvironmental Behavior Self-transcendence moderated regression Self-transcendence (beta=.18) Awareness of Consequences global (beta=.18) Ascription of Responsibility global (beta.15) Three-way multiplicative effect (p<.05) Self-enhancement Self-enhancement (-.04, ns) Awareness of Consequences local (beta=+.07) Ascription of Responsibility local (beta=+.19) No significant multiplicative effects

10. Results? - Norm Activation

11. Discussion Self-transcendent values are correlated with biospheric environmental concerns Positively with environmental behavior Especially when activated Self-enhancing values are correlated with egoistic environmental concerns Negatively with environmental behavior No evidence for norm activation

12. Discussion Many speculations in the literature that egoistic concerns (and self-enhancement) could lead to environmental behaviors No evidence here (or elsewhere). Why? 1. Environmental behavior is viewed as “altruism” Sacrificing. Giving up. Donating. Going without. No appeal to selfish motives. 2. Environmental behaviors ARE altruistic Commons Dilemma GRIT (commons solution) requires sacrifice

13. Discussion 3. Environmental problems not yet severe enough to activate self-interest Oil, gas, and conservation? 4. Correlations might not be the right statistic Egoistic and biospheric concerns “progressively inclusive.” Biospheric concern does not mean lack of concern for self. Correlations can’t detect this.

16. FIGURE 18-3 Average levels of egoistic and biospheric environmental concerns for selected countries.