In response to the rapidly growing global environmental problems many call for changes in how individuals should deal with the environment. An important aspect of moving towards an environmentally sustainable world is to promote pro-environmental consumer behavior. Against this background, the purpose of this study is to conduct a literature review to identify social and psychological factors that influence environmental behavior and use these as a basis for an empirical study in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, for analyzing current behavioral patterns between population groups. The findings suggest that willingness to sacrifice for the environment, perceived behavioral control of environmental problems and the feeling of responsibility of environmental problems are significantly positively related to environmental behavior in Abu Dhabi. It was evaluated that younger age groups, very low and very high income groups, people from developing nations and low education groups are performing worse in environmental behavior than older age groups, middle income groups, people from developed nations and high education groups. Furthermore, it was concluded that the general level of environmental behavior is low. This is ascribed to a lack of facilities supporting environmental behavior in Abu Dhabi, and a lack of environmental values in the country. Policies aimed at promoting environmental behavior should aim at changing the attitudes and values regarding the environment of the society. Such policies should be tailored for specific population segments.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-29886 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Willuweit, Lars |
| Publisher | Stockholms universitet, Kulturgeografiska institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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