Spillover Effects Of Pro-environment Behavior:The Moderating Role Of Regulatory Focus

With the deterioration of the environment,all countrys and areas around the world are suffering environmental disasters of varying degrees.Solving the problem of pollution and improving the environment have become the common wish of the public.It requires that all of us should change our existing behaviors and habits to participate in environmental protection activities,but it is difficult for lots of people to stick to environmental protection activities.Previous studies have found that demographic variables such as gender,age,income level,and education level as well as psychological factors including personality,emotion,cognition,and values can effectively prediect pro-environmental behaviors.In recent years,more and more researches confirmed the spillover effect of the pro-environmental behavior.The spillover of the pro-environmental behavior means that previous pro-environmental behaviors increase or decline those subsequent behaviors.This paper will explore the effect of regulatory focus on the spillover of the pro-environmental behavior.Study one use RFQ(Regulatory Focus Questionnaire)to measure the chronic regulatory focus of subjects,and explore the effect of chronic regulatory focus and shopping behavior on subsequent pro-environmental behaviors by two experiments.Experiment one shows the result that these two factors have reciprocal effect on the trend of target pro-environmental behavior.In samples applying promotion focus,the green shopping group apparently has a stronger tendency to adopt pro-environmental behavior than the traditional shopping group.In samples applying prevention focus,there is no significant difference between the inclinations of pro-environmental behaviors of these two groups.Experiment two replaces dependent variable with product selection.It turns out that the propotion of selections of environment-friendly tissues of green shopping group was distinctly higher than that of traditional shopping group among samples of promotion focus.And among samples of prevention focus,the propotion of those selections of green shopping group is distinctly lower than that of traditional shopping group.Study two initiates the regulatory focus of subjects with guidance and maze task to explore the effect of situational regulation focus and behavioral recollection on subsequent pro-environmental behaviors.We find that in the group of promotion focus,more subjects selecte environmental-friendly notebooks when they have recollected their previous environmental behaviors than those who recollects their previous travel experiences.Those subjects who selecte more notebooks also provided a larger share of donations to environmental organization.When it comes to the group of prevention focus,subjects who have recalled their previous environmental behaviors selected less notebooks than those who have recalle their travel experiences.And those subjects who selecte less notebooks also provided a smaller share of donations to environmental organization.With above three experiments summarized,this paper drew the following main conclusion:regulatory focus has regulating effect on the spillover effect of pro-environmental behavior.Specifically speaking:(1)Chronics promotion-focused individuals tend to continue to commit pro-environmental behaviors after doing the ones,positive spillover effect;at the same time,while they prevents targeted individuals from allowing themselves to do less or not after commiting pro-environmental behaviors,negative spillover effect.(2)Initiating the individual's situational promotion focus,and recalling the previous pro-environmental behavior will increase its subsequent pro-environmental behavior,positive spillover effect.Meanwile,initiating the individual's situational prevention focus,and recalling the previous pro-environmental behavior will reduce its subsequent pro-environmental behavior,negative spillover effect,negative spillover effect.