Journal
ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS
Volume 149, Issue -, Pages 105-119Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.03.002
Keywords
Green self-image; Subjective well-being; Life satisfaction; Social norm; Social division
Funding
- Stiftung Mercator
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Recent literature has found that individuals holding a greener self-image display higher levels of life satisfaction. We extend the single-country setting of that research to a transnational perspective and explore whether a relationship exists between green self-image (GSI) and life satisfaction (LS), both European-wide and at the national level. In order to explain differences in the GSI-LS relationship across nations and time, we study the role of pro-environmental values as a shared social norm. We find a significantly positive GSI-LS relationship in a pool of 35 European countries and in the majority of individual countries. In addition, we show that the wellbeing benefit of holding a green self-image is greater in societies that display more unanimity with respect to pro-environmental attitudes. Invoking the notion of social norms as shared agreements about what is appropriate and inappropriate, we take the latter finding to indicate that part of the well-being benefit from holding pro environmental values derives from conformity to a social norm.
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