Environmental education: The role of social norms in pro-environmental behavioral engagement

Details

Supervisors

Galand, Benoît

Faculty

Faculté de psychologie, logopédie, sexologie et des sciences de la famille

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences psychologiques, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

Environmental education is a crucial tool to encourage the formation of environmentally literate citizens. Being environmentally literate implies possessing knowledge and abilities to act pro-environmentally and holding positive attitudes and strong intentions toward pro-environmental behavior. This tool is also well suited to reach people early in life, environmental education programs being more efficient among younger children. Environmental education seeks to raise people’s knowledge, awareness, and attitudes but also to influence people’s behavior. However, spreading knowledge alone is often insufficient to encourage people to engage in pro-environmental behavior. Behavioral change literature identifies various antecedents of behaviors. Drawing from both the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Social Identity Theory perspectives, social influence represents a strong leverage to encourage behavioral engagement. When assessing the pros and cons of engaging in a behavior, one tends to look at what a referent group does and thinks. One will behave according to this referent group’s social norms, especially if one highly identifies with this group. Therefore, emphasizing the importance of social norms could bring valuable insights to strengthen the effectiveness of environmental education programs. This Master’s thesis aims to explore the effect of pupils’ perceptions of their classmates’ actions and thoughts on their own pro-environmental intentions and behaviors. We also aim to evaluate the effect of three environmental projects on pupils’ pro-environmental behaviors and their antecedents. Using a quasi-experimental longitudinal design, we surveyed 640 Belgian primary school pupils between 8 and 14 years old from the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles. Some participated in an environmental education project, and others did not. Six Master’s students collected the pupils’ answers twice during the academic year 2023-2024. Based on hierarchical data analysis, we highlight that pupils’ perceptions of social norms influence their engagement in pro-environmental behavior. However, we also observed that environmental education projects tend to have no influence over pupils’ behaviors and their antecedents. We therefore argue that environmental education projects should consider including social norm-based methods to trigger pupils’ behavioral engagement.