The Impact of Social Norms on Pro-Environmental Behavior: A Systematic Literature Review of The Role of Culture and Self-Construal
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Methodology
- (pro-environ* OR sustainab* OR green) behav*;
- soc* norm*;
- self constr*;
- cult*.
- (descript* OR injunct*) soc* norm*;
- (individual* OR collectiv*) self*;
- (individual* OR collectiv*) cult*.
3. Literature on Pro-Environmental Sustainability
4. Research Development on the Relationship between Social Norms and Sustainability
5. Research on the Role of Self-Construal and Culture in the Norm–Sustainability Relationship
6. Methodological and Theoretical Fabric of the Research on the Role of Self-Construal and Culture in the Norm–Sustainability Relationship
7. Discussion and Suggestions for Future Research
8. Limitations
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Topic | Results |
---|---|
Papers on “pro-environmental/sustainable/green behavior” | 16,420 |
Papers on “norm–sustainability” | 1048 |
Papers on “self-construal and norm–sustainability” | 111 |
Papers on “culture and norm–sustainability” | 136 |
Papers on “self-construal, culture and norm–sustainability” | 20 |
Top 20 Journals (Number of Publications) | JIF 2019 | Top 10 Authors (Number of Publications) | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Han, H. (57) | Steg, L. (50) | Liu, Y. (35) | Wang, Y. (34) | Kim, J. (32) | Zhang, L. (31) | Thogersen, J. (30) | Wang, J. (29) | Lee, S. (27) | Li, J. (26) | ||
Sustainability (1,629) | 2.576 | 6 | 1 | 4 | 8 | 6 | 10 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 2 |
Journal of Cleaner Production (658) | 7.246 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | ||
Journal of Environmental Psychology (244) | 3.301 | 2 | 10 | 4 | 1 | ||||||
Ecological Economics (221) | 4.482 | 1 | |||||||||
Journal of Sustainable Tourism (205) | 3.986 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||
Journal of Business Ethics (203) | 4.141 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||
Energy Policy (182) | 5.042 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||||||
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (179) | 2.468 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||
International Journal of Consumer Studies (162) | 1.538 | 1 | 2 | ||||||||
BMC Public Health (135) | 2.521 | 1 | |||||||||
Frontiers in Psychology (126) | 2.067 | 7 | 1 | 1 | |||||||
PLOS ONE (119) | 2.74 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||
Business Strategy and the Environment (118) | 5.483 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||
Environmental Education Research (115) | 2.266 | ||||||||||
Resources Conservation and Recycling (108) | 8.086 | 1 | |||||||||
Environment and Behavior (101) | 5.141 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||
Journal of Business Research (100) | 4.874 | ||||||||||
Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice (96) | 3.992 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||||||
International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education (94) | 2.00 | ||||||||||
Journal of Environmental Management (94) | 5.647 | 1 |
Top 10 Journals in Terms of Number of Publications | Record Count | Top 10 Journals in Terms of Number of Citations | Citation Count |
---|---|---|---|
Sustainability | 94 | Journal of Environmental Psychology | 34 |
Journal of Environmental Psychology | 44 | Journal of Cleaner Production | 23 |
Journal of Cleaner Production | 42 | Ecological Economics | 18 |
Ecological Economics | 27 | Journal of Business Ethics | 16 |
Journal of Business Ethics | 26 | Sustainability | 16 |
Environment and Behavior | 19 | Resources Conservation and Recycling | 12 |
Resources Conservation and Recycling | 16 | Environment and Behavior | 11 |
Energy Research Social Science | 15 | Energy Policy | 10 |
International Journal of Consumer Studies | 15 | Business Strategy and the Environment | 9 |
Business Strategy and the Environment | 14 | International Journal ofConsumerStudies | 8 |
Top 10 Journals | JIF 2019 | Han, H. | Klockner, C.A. | Kim, W. | Fielding, K.S. | Font, X. | Jansson, J. | Lee, M.J. | Lopez-Mosquera, N. | Reese, G. | Stegl, L. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sustainability | 2.576 | X | X | X | X | ||||||
Journal of Environmental Psychology | 3.301 | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||||
Journal of Cleaner Production | 7.246 | X | X | ||||||||
Ecological Economics | 4.482 | ||||||||||
Journal of Business Ethics | 4.141 | ||||||||||
Environment and Behavior | 5.141 | X | X | ||||||||
Resources Conservation and Recycling | 8.086 | X | |||||||||
Energy Research Social Science | 4.771 | X | |||||||||
International Journal of Consumer Studies | 1.538 | ||||||||||
Business Strategy and the Environment | 5.483 | X | X | X | X |
Main Research Areas | Number of Publications | Some of the Popular Topics |
---|---|---|
Environmental sciences ecology | 118 | CO2 emission, biodiversity, health issues |
Business economics | 66 | Rural sustainability transformation, engagement in consumption models, employee misbehavior |
Science technology | 49 | Meat avoidance, ocean sustainability, cooking stoves |
Psychology | 39 | Willingness to assist elderly people, narcissism, violence prevention |
Social sciences | 29 | Binning behavior outdoors, sustainable tourism, nuclear technology use |
Engineering | 19 | Storm water reuse, pavement construction, water resource protection |
Public environmental occupational health | 16 | Community hygiene norms, physical activity, healthy eating |
Sociology | 11 | Religion in norm adherence, influence of religion on sustainable behavior, obligation model for landowner |
Geography | 10 | Ecological citizenship, agricultural practices, garden design |
Transportation | 8 | Usage of travel apps, adoption of autonomous vehicles, sustainable transport mode |
Paper | Author | Year | Journal | Times Cited | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1. | How national cultural values affect pro-environmental consumer behavior. | Soyez [30] | 2012 | International Marketing Review | 80 |
2. | When Do (and Don’t) Normative Appeals Influence Sustainable Consumer Behaviors? | White and Simpson [12] | 2013 | Journal of Marketing | 89 |
3. | Personal and social factors that influence pro-environmental concern and behavior: A review. | Gifford and Nilsson [31] | 2014 | International Journal of Psychology | 346 |
4. | Environmentally friendly consumer choices: Cultural differences in the self-regulatory function of anticipated pride and guilt. | Onwezen et al. [18] | 2014 | Journal of Environmental Psychology | 44 |
5. | Going green to fit in—understanding the impact of social norms on pro-environmental behaviour, a cross-cultural approach. | Culiberg and Elgaaied- Gambier [1] | 2016 | International Journal of Consumer Studies | 18 |
6. | The power of persuasive communication to influence sustainable holiday choices Appealing to self-benefits and norms. | Hardeman et al. [19] | 2017 | Tourism Management | 19 |
7. | The Influence of Cultural Values on Green Purchase Behaviour. | Nguyen et al. [32] | 2017 | Marketing Intelligence and Planning | 22 |
8. | Determinants of Organic Cotton Apparel Purchase: A Comparison of Young Consumers in the USA and South Korea. | Han [33] | 2018 | Sustainability | 0 |
9. | Sharing Sustainability How Values and Ethics Matter in Consumers’ Adoption of Public Bicycle-Sharing Scheme. | Yin et al. [34] | 2018 | Journal of Business Ethics | 23 |
10. | Hofstede’s Collectivistic Values and Sustainable Growth of Online Group Buying. | Han and Kim [35] | 2019 | Sustainability | 2 |
11. | Collaborative fashion consumption—A cross-cultural study between Tehran and Berlin. | Iran et al. [36] | 2019 | Journal of Cleaner Production | 8 |
12. | What predicts household waste management behaviors? Culture and type of behavior as moderators. | Mintz et al. [21] | 2019 | Resources Conservation and Recycling | 8 |
13. | How to SHIFT Consumer Behaviors to be More Sustainable: A Literature Review and Guiding Framework. | White et al. [37] | 2019 | Journal of Marketing | 27 |
14. | Framing Descriptive Norms as Self-Benefit Versus Environmental Benefit: Self-Construal’s Moderating Impact in Promoting Smart Energy Devices. | Mingolla et al. [38] | 2020 | Sustainability | 0 |
15. | Temporal Distance and Descriptive Norms on Environmental Behaviors: A Cross-Cultural Examination of Construal-Level Theory. | Park et al. [20] | 2020 | Sage Open | 0 |
Paper | Norms | Self-Construal | Culture | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Social Norms (in General) | Descriptive Social Norms | Injunctive Social Norms | Other Norm Types | Independent/ Interdependent | Individual Self | Collective Self | High-/Low-Level Construal | Culture (in General) | Collectivistic | Individualistic | Other Cultural Dimensions | |
Soyez 2012 | X | S | X | X | X | |||||||
White and Simpson 2013 | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||
Gifford and Nilsson 2014 | X | X | S; P; L | X | ||||||||
Onwezen et al., 2014 | X | X | X | X | ||||||||
Culiberg and Elgaaied-Gambier 2016 | X | X | PE | X | ||||||||
Hardeman et al., 2017 | X | P | X | X | X | X | ||||||
Nguyen et al., 2017 | X | S | X | X | LTO | |||||||
Han 2018 | X | X | S | X | X | |||||||
Yin et al., 2018 | X | X | X | |||||||||
Han and Kim 2019 | X | S; G | X | X | ||||||||
Iran et al., 2019 | X | X | X | UA; M/F; PD | ||||||||
Mintz et al., 2019 | X | X | X | |||||||||
White et al., 2019 | X | X | S; P | X | X | |||||||
Mingolla et al., 2020 | X | X | X | |||||||||
Park et al., 2020 | X | X | X |
Moderator | Differences in Findings | Research Propositions |
---|---|---|
Culture | Norm compliance irrespective of country differences | |
Individualistic cultures | Sustainable behavior influenced by attitudes | Closer investigation of the effects of injunctive norms |
Injunctive norms not significant | ||
Injunctive norms eliminate the possible negative effect of descriptive norms | Investigation of the impact of social norms in different individualistic cultures | |
Collectivistic cultures | Sustainable behavior influenced by social norms | |
Self-construal | Norm compliance depends on self-construal level | Closer investigation of the effects of self-construal in different cultures |
Norm compliance irrespective of the self-construal level | ||
Interaction between descriptive norms and self-construal insignificant |
Paper | Conceptual | Empirical | |
---|---|---|---|
Quantitative | Qualitative | ||
Culiberg and Elgaaied-Gambier | X | ||
Gifford and Nilsson | X | ||
Han and Kim | X | ||
Han | X | ||
Hardeman et al. | X | X | |
Iran et al. | X | ||
Mingolla et al. | X | ||
Mintz et al. | X | ||
Nguyen et al. | X | ||
Onwezen et al. | X | ||
Park et al. | X | ||
Soyez | X | ||
White and Simpson | X | X | |
White et al. | X | ||
Yin et al. | X |
Country (Hofstede Scores) | Soyez | Onwezen et al. | Culiberg and Elgaaied- Gambier | Hardeman et al. | Nguyen et al. | Han | Yin et al. | Iran et al. | Mingolla et al. | Mintz et al. | Park et al. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Australia (90) | X | X | |||||||||
Canada (80) | X | X | |||||||||
China (20) | X | ||||||||||
France (71) | X | ||||||||||
Germany (67) | X | X | X | X | |||||||
Iran (41) | X | X | |||||||||
Israel (54) | X | ||||||||||
Japan (46) | X | ||||||||||
Malaysia (26) | X | ||||||||||
Netherlands (80) | X | X | |||||||||
Russia (39) | X | ||||||||||
Singapore (20) | X | ||||||||||
Slovenia (27) | X | ||||||||||
South Korea (18) | X | X | |||||||||
United Kingdom (89) | X | ||||||||||
United States (91) | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||
Vietnam (20) | X |
Theory/Mentioned in | Paper 1 | ||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Soyez 2012 | White and Simpson 2013 | Gifford and Nilsson 2014 | Onwezen et al., 2014 | Culiberg and Elgaaied- Gambier 2016 | Hardeman et al., 2017 | Nguyen et al., 2017 | Han 2018 | Yin et al., 2018 | Han and Kim 2019 | Iran et al., 2019 | Mintz et al., 2019 | White et al., 2019 | Mingolla et al., 2020 | Park et al., 2020 | |
Theory of Planned Behavior | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||
Theory of Reasoned Action | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
The Value–Belief–Norm System | X | ||||||||||||||
Norm-Activation Theory | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
Social Identity Theory | X | X | X | ||||||||||||
Self-Construal Theory | X | X | |||||||||||||
The Focus Theory of Normative Conduct | X | X | |||||||||||||
Construal-Level Theory | X | ||||||||||||||
Theory of Normative Social Behavior | X | ||||||||||||||
Comprehensive Action Determination Model | X | ||||||||||||||
Subjective Utility Theory | X | ||||||||||||||
Theory of Social Comparison | X | ||||||||||||||
Theory of Post-Materialism | X | ||||||||||||||
Social Adaptation Theory | X | ||||||||||||||
Theory of Marketing Ethics | X |
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Saracevic, S.; Schlegelmilch, B.B. The Impact of Social Norms on Pro-Environmental Behavior: A Systematic Literature Review of The Role of Culture and Self-Construal. Sustainability 2021, 13, 5156. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13095156
Saracevic S, Schlegelmilch BB. The Impact of Social Norms on Pro-Environmental Behavior: A Systematic Literature Review of The Role of Culture and Self-Construal. Sustainability. 2021; 13(9):5156. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13095156
Chicago/Turabian StyleSaracevic, Selma, and Bodo B. Schlegelmilch. 2021. "The Impact of Social Norms on Pro-Environmental Behavior: A Systematic Literature Review of The Role of Culture and Self-Construal" Sustainability 13, no. 9: 5156. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13095156