The Influence Of Materialism On Pro-environmental Behavior And Its Psychological Mechanism

With the development of the economy,environmental issues have become increasingly prominent,driving researchers to conduct more in-depth research on proenvironmental behavior/environmentally responsible behavior.At present,materialism has become an indispensable part of modern life and work.High-level materialists usually focus on low-level needs,have high external motivational focus,low intrinsic motivation focus.A large number of studies have found that the level of individual materialism has a negative impact on pro-environment behavior.In this study,college students in Guangzhou universities were selected as subjects,and the influence of materialism on environmental pro-environment and environmental behavior and its psychological mechanism were explored by using the mixed-sentence task and the materialistic initiation of luxury pictures.The study is divided into three parts.Study 1 verifies that luxury pictures and materialistic vocabulary can be used as measures to activate materialism and exclude interference from unrelated variables;Study 2 uses experimental research to explore the initiation of materialism on environmentally friendly behavior(Pro-environmental behavior in the public domain and Pro-environmental behavior in the private domain;Research 3 uses experimental research to study whether the initiation of materialism can influence the subsequent pro-environmental behavior and explore the internal mechanism of its influence.Research indicates:1.The picture start and mixed phrase task are effective for the initiation of materialism,and this method of initiation does not interfere with the experimental results.2.The initiation of materialism will produce less public-area pro-environmental tendencies,while the impact on the private sector’s pro-environmental tendencies is not significant.In the results of materialism’s research on environmentally-friendly trends in various public sectors,the study found that low-level materialist groups are more willing to donate to environmental organizations,associations,or environmental protection activities,as well as actively paying attention to environmental issues and environmental information reported by magazines and media..3.In real situations,materialism has a negative impact on pro-environmental behavior in the public domain.Natural empathy plays a part in mediating between materialism and public-related environmental behavior.This intermediary role is regulated by environmental responsibility.For individuals with low levels of environmental responsibility,materialism has a relatively strong indirect effect on the environmentally friendly behavior of the public domain through natural empathy.For individuals with higher levels of environmental responsibility,The indirect effect is weak.