Pro-environmental Attitude-Behavior; A Spillover or a Gap?

Abstract

Many environmental problems result from direct or indirect consequences of individuals’ non-pro-environmental travel behavior. However, environmental behavior studies have mainly focused on in and around home scale and the relationship between environmental commitments and behavior at home and their spillover effect to tourism context has not received much attention. To explore the underlying reasons for individuals’ non-pro-environmental travel behavior, this paper investigates the attitude-behavior relation, focusing on the theory of planned behavior and cognitive dissonance theory. It also examines the spillover effect of pro-environmental behavior in around home to tourism setting. It presents the results of an analysis of personal interviews with environmental experts in Gothenburg, Sweden. Findings reveal that there is a gap between individuals’ pro-environmental attitude and actual travel behavior. As a result, the pro-environmental behavior of environmental experts in their home setting does not spill over to tourism context. Further, the inconsistency between their attitude and actual travel behavior causes cognitive dissonance. To re-establish consonance, different coping strategies including modification of beliefs and behavior change were applied. Classification of findings explains the underlying reasons for the existing attitude-behavior gap.