Understanding The Prevalence of Eco Guilt and Eco Grief among Adolescents: A Salutogenic Approach Towards Building ‘Pro-Environmental Behaviour’

Abstract

Negative emotions within the context of environment such as eco guilt and eco grief help individuals understand their impact on the environment and motivate them to act favorable to the environment. Antonovsky's Salutogenic theory, specifically the sense of coherence model consisting of 3 components, namely, Comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness has been used as a foundation for explaining the concept of eco-guilt, eco-grief, environmental locus of control and pro-environmental behavior in adolescents. This paper aims to examine the relationship between eco-guilt, eco-grief, environmental locus of control and pro-environmental behavior among adolescents. The Eco guilt questionnaire, Eco grief questionnaire and Adolescent Internal Environmental Locus of Control Questionnaire were administered to the subjects to measure the prevalence of eco guilt, eco grief, and environmental locus of control, respectively, and General Ecological Behavior scale was used to assess pro-environmental behavior. Upon analysis, it was found that eco-guilt, eco-grief, and environmental locus of control shared a positive association with pro-environmental behavior among adolescents. Moreover, eco-guilt, eco-grief, and environmental locus of control were found to predict pro-environmental behavior among adolescents. Further investigation may be conducted to deepen the understanding of the relationship between eco-guilt, eco-grief and environmental locus of control and pro-environmental behavior.