Niu Xueting, Li Menghan, Sun Zhenhe, Li He
School of Public Administration, Northwest University, Xi'an, China.
School of Emergency Management, Northwest University, Xi'an, China.
Front Psychol. 2025 Aug 14;16:1625619. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1625619. eCollection 2025.
Anticipated emotions are important predictors of pro-environmental behavior within the extended theory of planned behavior. However, their mechanisms need further exploration through emotion theories. This study applies Affective Events Theory (AET), a framework originally developed to explain emotional influences on behavior in workplace settings and more recently extended to the context of pro-environmental behavior, to examine how anticipated positive and negative emotions influence pro-environmental behavior, with environmental attitudes serving as a mediator.
A cross-sectional survey was conducted to measure anticipated positive and negative emotions, environmental attitudes, pro-environmental behavior, and demographic variables. A total of 500 questionnaires were randomly distributed via the Credamo online platform, yielding 442 valid responses.
Both anticipated positive and negative emotions positively influence pro-environmental behavior, with environmental attitudes mediating these effects. Specifically, anticipated positive emotions not only exert a direct impact on pro-environmental behavior but also indirectly influence it through environmental attitudes. In contrast, anticipated negative emotions affect pro-environmental behavior exclusively through the mediating role of environmental attitudes. The direct effect of anticipated positive emotions may reflect the approach-oriented motivational function of positive emotions. Meanwhile, the indirect effects of both types of emotions through environmental attitudes suggest that anticipated emotions promote pro-environmental behavior by influencing individuals' perceptions of the human-environment relationship. These findings significantly advance our understanding of the emotional mechanisms underlying pro-environmental behavior and offer valuable implications for designing emotion-based interventions aimed at fostering environmentally responsible actions.
在扩展的计划行为理论中，预期情绪是亲环境行为的重要预测因素。然而，其机制需要通过情感理论进一步探索。本研究应用情感事件理论（AET），该框架最初是为解释工作场所环境中情绪对行为的影响而开发的，最近已扩展到亲环境行为的背景下，以检验预期的积极和消极情绪如何影响亲环境行为，其中环境态度作为中介变量。
进行了一项横断面调查，以测量预期的积极和消极情绪、环境态度、亲环境行为和人口统计学变量。通过Credamo在线平台随机发放了500份问卷，共获得442份有效回复。
预期的积极和消极情绪均对亲环境行为产生积极影响，环境态度在这些影响中起中介作用。具体而言，预期的积极情绪不仅对亲环境行为有直接影响，还通过环境态度间接影响亲环境行为。相比之下，预期的消极情绪仅通过环境态度的中介作用影响亲环境行为。预期积极情绪的直接效应可能反映了积极情绪的趋近导向动机功能。同时，两种情绪通过环境态度的间接效应表明，预期情绪通过影响个体对人-环境关系的认知来促进亲环境行为。这些发现显著推进了我们对亲环境行为背后情感机制的理解，并为设计旨在促进对环境负责行为的基于情绪的干预措施提供了有价值的启示。
