Behavioral Intentions and Environmental Identity
Summary
Behavioral intentions represent individuals’ conscious plans or commitments to perform pro-environmental actions. Environmental identity describes the extent to which a person perceives nature and environmental stewardship as integral to their self-concept. Together, these constructs form a reciprocal system: a strong environmental identity promotes the intention to adopt sustainable behaviours, while repeated intention-driven actions reinforce and deepen one’s environmental identity. Theoretical frameworks such as the Theory of Planned Behaviour and the Value-Belief-Norm model have been widely applied to elucidate how attitudes, social norms and perceived control translate into intentions and, eventually, sustained ecological practices. Understanding this interplay is vital for designing interventions that move beyond awareness-raising towards durable identity change, with significant implications for climate change mitigation, biodiversity conservation and the promotion of circular economies across diverse cultural contexts.
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Behavioral Intentions and Environmental Identity publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in behavioral intentions and environmental identity across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Behavioural intention: A person’s stated readiness or plan to perform a specific pro-environmental action.
Environmental identity: The degree to which environmental concern and nature connection are integrated into one’s self-concept.
Theory of Planned Behaviour: A model positing that attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control jointly predict behavioural intentions.
Value-Belief-Norm theory: A framework linking personal values, environmental beliefs and moral norms to the formation of pro-environmental intentions and actions.
References
- From attitude to identity? A field experiment on attitude activation, identity formation, and meat reduction. Journal of Environmental Psychology (2023).
- Exploring the Relationship Between Connectedness With Nature, Environmental Identity, and Environmental Self-Identity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. SAGE Open (2019).
- Fostering local seasonality: An extended value-belief-norm model to understand sustainable food choices.. Food Quality and Preference (2024).
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