Pro-environmental motivation and regulation to respect environmental laws as predictors of illegal anti-environmental behaviour / La motivación pro-ambiental y la motivación para respetar las leyes medioambientales como predictoras de la conducta anti-ecológica ilegal

Abstract Psychological research into illegal anti-environmental behaviour is scarce because this type of behaviour is difficult to analyse and conceptualize. Motivational variables and, in particular, regulation mechanisms can help to explain this type of environmentally significant behaviour. The aim of this research is to analyse the relationship between pro-environmental motives and illegal anti-environmental behaviour. A total of 311 university students completed a questionnaire that included a Spanish translation of the Motivation Toward the Environment Scale, questions about illegal anti-environmental behaviour and regulation to respect environmental laws. The results indicate that the factor structure of the scale, obtained by means of confirmatory factor analysis, is the same as the one proposed by its authors. Furthermore, we ascertained that pro-environmental motives predict pro-environmental and also illegal anti-environmental behaviour, but that the percentage of explained variance is higher when using regulation to respect environmental laws.