Future Temporal Focus and Proenvironmental Behavior: A Trait Activation Perspective

Abstract

Environmental protection is not only a social dilemma, it is also a temporal dilemma influencing the survival of all human beings. Drawing from the temporal focus literature, we proposed that individuals with a stronger (vs. weaker) future temporal focus would engage in more proenvironmental behaviors via greater environmental commitment. Integrating trait activation theory, we further proposed that environmental resource scarcity would strengthen the process we had already proposed. We tested our proposals with 591 university students in Eastern China, who completed an anonymous survey. The data were collected in three waves with a 2-week interval between each wave. A structural equation model was applied to test the hypotheses. Future temporal focus significantly influenced participants' proenvironmental behavior via their environmental commitment, and the positive influence was stronger when the environmental resource was scarce. This study enriches the environmental protection literature by providing a temporal framework. The theoretical and practical implications of proenvironmental behavior are discussed.