Multilevel Evidence for the Parent-Adolescent Dyadic Effect of Familiarity With Climate Change on Pro-Environmental Behaviors in 14 Societies: Moderating Effects of Societal Power Distance and Individualism

Abstract

In the present study, we adopted a global view for exploring how parent–adolescent dyads influence one another’s pro-environmental behaviors across 14 societies. We evaluated whether their own and the other’s familiarity with climate change are linked with their pro-environmental behaviors between parents and adolescents. We also explored the moderating role of societal power distance and individualism on these dyadic effects. We tested hypotheses using the data from the Program for International Student Assessment 2018 (including 62,080 parent–adolescent dyads from 14 societies). Conducting multilevel actor–partner interdependence models, we found that parents’ and adolescents’ familiarity with climate change generally predicted their own and the other’s pro-environmental behaviors within a family context in most societies. More importantly, the dyadic patterns were stronger in societies with lower levels of power distance or higher levels of individualism. Finally, we discuss the implications of promoting pro-environmental behaviors from a cultural perspective and a dyadic approach.