Predicting Pro-Environmental Behaviours in the Public Sphere: Comparing the Influence of Social Anxiety, Self-Efficacy, Global Warming Awareness and the NEP

Environmental sustainability depends highly on our ability to identify the determinants of various types of pro-environmental behaviours (PEBs). However, so far, public sphere pro-environmental behaviours (PBS-PEBs) have received little attention in the scientific literature. This paper aims thus to fill this gap by exploring the role of dispositional (i.e., social anxiety and self-efficacy) and social psychological factors (i.e., environmental concern and global warming awareness) in the prediction of PBS-PEBs. An online questionnaire, including measures of these factors, was administered to residents (N = 199) of various Italian cities. The results indicated that (1) dispositional social anxiety (but not self-efficacy) directly (and negatively) predicts PBS-PEBs and that its effect is comparable to that of the social psychological factors considered (environmental concern and global warming awareness); (2) global warming awareness (positively) predicts PBS-PEBs directly, while (3) environmental concern, measured through the NEP scale, does it indirectly. Implications of the results for modelling the role of dispositional anxiety, environmental concern and global warming awareness in studies on PBS-PEBs are briefly outlined.