University of Twente Student Theses
Understanding the Role of Eco-anxiety, Eco-grief, and Eco-guilt in Age-Related Pro-Environmental Behaviour: A Detailed Analysis in Germany and the Netherlands
Doyle, Killian (2024) Understanding the Role of Eco-anxiety, Eco-grief, and Eco-guilt in Age-Related Pro-Environmental Behaviour: A Detailed Analysis in Germany and the Netherlands.
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| Abstract: | Background: Prior studies observed that people can experience a variety of negative emotional responses like eco-anxiety, eco-grief, and eco-guilt due to climate change. Furthermore, these phenomena were found to influence the pro-environmental behaviour (PEB) of people. Moreover, age significantly influences these three concepts and PEB. This thesis focuses on the possible mediating role of eco-anxiety, eco-guilt, and eco-grief in the age-PEB relationship in the German and Dutch populations. Methods: This cross-sectional study used quantitative data-gathering methods in the form of an online survey. The EAQ-22, EGriQ-6, and EGuiQ-11 were applied to 85 participants to measure these concepts and the PEBS was used to measure the pro-environmental behaviour. Results: The findings indicated that a higher age of participants does not lead to a lower level of eco-anxiety (p=.058), eco-guilt (p=.079), and eco-grief (p=.018) and does not positively influence PEB (p=.160). Additionally, no effect for eco-anxiety (p= .08), eco-guilt (p=.59), and eco-grief (p=.25) on PEB was found in the sample. Furthermore, eco-anxiety, eco-guilt and eco-grief do not mediate the relationship between age and PEB (p>.05). However, results of the multiple mediation analysis revealed that eco-anxiety, eco-guilt, and eco-grief are positively correlated (p<.001) with changes in pro-environmental behaviour. Conclusion: In general, the multiple mediation model, which was proposed, was rejected, due to the non-significant relationships of the independent variable age with the dependent variables eco-anxiety, ecoguilt, eco-grief, and PEB. Nevertheless, the strong intercorrelation among the mediating variables and the small sample size of the study might have impacted their association with PEB and caused the observed contradictions in this relationship. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Bachelor) |
| Faculty: | BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences |
| Programme: | Psychology BSc (56604) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/98068 |
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