The impact of behavioural difficulty on the saliency of the association between self-determined motivation and environmental behaviours

The goal of the study is to evaluate the impact of the perceived level of difficulty of environmental behaviours on the magnitude of the relationship between environmental self-determination and the occurrence of environmental behaviours. The participants (n = 444) completed the Motivation Toward the Environment Scale, along with self-report measures of environmental behaviours and perceived difficulty of environmental behaviours. Three types of environmental behaviours are examined: Recycling, purchasing environmentally-friendly products, and educating oneself as to what can be done for the environment. It is hypothesized that the level of self-determination of environmental motivation predicts the occurrence of environmental behaviours significantly. Moreover, the magnitude of the relationship between self-determination and environmental behaviours is expected to increase with the level of perceived difficulty of the behaviours. Data are subjected to structural equation modeling analyzes (EQS). Results support the proposed hypotheses. Self-determination displays a significant relationship with environmental behaviours, and the magnitude of this relationship increases with the difficulty of the environmental behaviour. Current environmental research trends and applied intervention strategies are discussed on the basis of this finding. Strategies for the promotion of environmental behaviours are proposed.