Is pro-environmentalism a privilege? Country development factors as moderators of socio-psychological drivers of pro-environmental behavior

ABSTRACT Explaining cross-national differences in individual pro-environmental behaviors is usually grounded in large, heterogeneous data sets. Consequently, research findings may over- or underestimate the effects of environmental variables of interest when analyzing cross-level interactions. This research contextualizes environmental behavior in the European Union, a set of socioeconomically different countries that share a common institutional framework. We explore the effects of country-level drivers on behavior after controlling for individual-level drivers using multilevel regression analysis to estimate the impact of country-level drivers on both the mean behavior of individuals and cross-level interactions. The direct impact of country-level drivers on pro-environmental behaviors was as expected: country affluence and income inequality had positive and negative impacts, respectively, whereas country education level, environmental issues, and cultural values had no direct impact. Nonetheless, in terms of cross-level interactions, country education level increased the effect of perceived behavioral control on behaviors. In Western countries, the influence of country affluence and education level on behavior, operating through social-psychological drivers, maybe underpinned by different socioeconomic mechanisms. Income may not be enough to change perceptions of reality, but income can be transformed into cultural capital that, in turn, may change socially ingrained habits, skills, and dispositions.