Conceptual links between environmental psychology and climate change education to encourage climate-friendly behavior of young people. Is there a role for self-regulation?

Bridging the gap between climate change knowledge and climate-friendly behavior remains one of the biggest challenges in the twenty-first century. Traditional approaches to behavior change have tended to focus on expanding evidence-based knowledge, with limited translation into action. New methods to increase action must be explored, and self-regulation in encouraging climate-friendly behavior presents an interesting approach. We applied the Risk, Attitudes, Norms, Ability, and Self-regulation (RANAS) model, a systematic approach to facilitate behavior change, to the context of climate-friendly behavior. Determinants of climate-friendly actions among high school students (n = 386) from Austria and Germany were investigated. From the data collected, Everyday- and Proactive Action (PA) was identified as two types of climate-friendly action. To gain further insights into the role of self-regulation in facilitating these types of action, the subfactors of self-regulation of the RANAS model were used and tested for their construct validity. These subfactors showed a positive correlation with Everyday- and Proactive Action. Using a two-level linear model including control variables, we show that Action Planning (AP), Action Control (AC), and Commitment are significant for Everyday Action (EA). For PA, AP and Commitment show a significant effect. Overall, self-regulation is worthy of further investigation in context of climate-friendly behavior.