The moderating role of domain meanings in explaining the environmental attitude-behavior gap

Abstract The attitude-behavior gap is among the most challenging barriers for promoting individual environmental protecting behaviors, which are urgently needed to address the current climate crisis. We aimed to test whether the subjective interpretations regarding the preservation of the planet, conceived as domain meanings, moderate the relationship between environmental attitudes and pro-environmental behaviors. A total of 700 Italian participants answered to an online survey. The Transformative Utopian Impulse for Planetary Health Scale (TUIPHS-IT) was used to measure domain meanings. Environmental attitudes were assessed using the New Ecological Paradigm Scale - Revised (NEP-R), and pro-environmental behaviors were evaluated with the Pro-Environmental Behaviors Scale (PEBS). A moderation analysis was conducted with PEBS as dependent variable, NEP-R as independent variable, and TUIPHS-IT as moderator. Age and gender were included as covariates in the model. Results showed a significant association between NEP-R and PEBS with TUIPHS-IT moderating this relationship. High scores on TUIPHS-IT reinforced the effect of NEP-R on PEBS, while low scores weakened it. Age was not found to have a significant impact on PEBS, whereas gender showed a significant association with PEBS. The findings suggest that intervening on meaning systems of individuals who are less sensitive to environmental issues by promoting alternative meanings could foster greater responsibility for current ecological challenges.