مدل فعال سازی هنجار: اکتشاف توابع غرور پیش بینی شده و گناه در رفتار طرفدار محیط زیست

The Norm Activation Model (NAM; Schwartz, 1977) is a vested model that explains altruistic and environmentally friendly behaviour. Although research states that anticipated pride and guilt are associated with the NAM, these associations are not yet fully understood. The current study provides an overview of the literature that refers to anticipated pride and guilt within the NAM. Moreover, we aim to increase our understanding of these associations through theoretical arguments and a study conducted in the Netherlands. We hypothesised that anticipated pride and guilt cause individuals to behave themselves in a manner that is in line with personal norms. This proposition regarding the self-regulatory function of anticipated pride and guilt was confirmed by our study; anticipated emotions mediate the effects of personal norms on behaviour. These associations remained after including the Theory of Planned Behaviour in the NAM, although in the integrated NAM–TPB model, anticipated emotions affected behaviour via behavioural intentions. Implications regarding these findings are discussed.

Western societies face increasing environmental problems, such as climate change and environmental, water and air pollution. Although it can be safely assumed that most people prefer to have a clean and healthy environment, there are temptations to act in environmentally unfriendly ways (e.g., wasting energy and littering). Because these environmental issues are associated with individual lifestyles (Carlsson-Kanayma, 1998), it is important to understand people’s decision-making processes regarding consumption behaviours related to the environment. This paper aims to contribute to this understanding by assessing the role of anticipated pride and guilt within the Norm Activation Model (NAM) (Schwartz, 1977). Previous research underscores the importance of activated personal norms for understanding people’s pro-environmental behaviour (e.g., Thøgersen, 2006). Several studies (e.g., Schwartz, 1977 and Thøgersen, 2009) have proposed that anticipated pride and guilt are associated with personal norms within the NAM; however, this research specifies the relationship between anticipated emotions and personal norms in different ways. Because these proposed associations are rarely tested, it remains unknown precisely how these anticipated emotions are related to personal norms and behaviours within the NAM. The present study contributes to the understanding of the influence of anticipated emotions on norm activation and individual decision making. We provide an overview of the existing literature and formulate and test a proposition regarding the function of anticipated emotions within the NAM. Moreover, a stream of research integrates the NAM with the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). The current study therefore also explores how anticipated pride and guilt relate to personal norms and behaviour within the integrated NAM–TPB model. To summarise, we aim to provide an overview of the different ways in which the association between anticipated emotions and the NAM is specified by previous studies. Moreover, we aim to clarify how anticipated pride and guilt are related to the NAM theoretically and in an empirical study.