HOW DOES GENERALIZED TRUST INFLUENCE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERN AND PRO-ENVIRONMENTAL BEHAVIOUR? - A quantitative study of pro-environmental behaviour in Sweden

Abstract

People who experience environmental concern engage more in pro-environmental behaviour. However, there is sometimes a lack of correlation meaning that concerned people do not always engage in pro-environmental behaviour. Based on the role trust plays in collective action, this thesis examined how generalized trust influences the relationship. Generalized trust was expected to influence concerned people to contribute more to pro-environmental behaviour since these people are more likely to expect others to do the same. The fear of free riders was also expected to decrease with higher generalized trust. On the contrary, lack of generalized trust was expected to influence concerned people to engage less in pro-environmental behaviour. Therefore, the hypothesis in this thesis was that generalized trust positively influences the relationship between environmental concern and pro-environmental behaviour. A statistical analysis with data from the SOM-survey was used to test the hypothesis, however, it was not supported. Thereby, in this thesis result, generalized trust does not seem to be a factor that influences the relationship between environmental concern and PEB.