Our health, our planet: a cross-sectional analysis on the association between health consciousness and pro-environmental behavior among health professionals

ABSTRACT

One possible predictive factor that affects both pro-environmental behavior and health behavior is health consciousness (a psychological state where an individual is aware of and involved in his/her health condition). We examined the relationship between health consciousness and two pro-environmental behaviors (recycling and green purchasing) within health professionals in a Japanese large hospital. Multivariate linear regression analysis revealed a significant association between health consciousness and recycling behavior, while there was no association between health consciousness and green purchasing behavior. We assume that health consciousness can certainly be a factor promoting pro-environmental behavior, but that it may have been insufficient to cause green purchasing, because of the organizational norm of recycling in the Japanese context. Given that there is previous evidence about the relationship between health consciousness and health behavior, health consciousness might be a predictive factor that encourages both health behavior and pro-environmental behavior simultaneously.

KEYWORDS:

• Pro-environmental behavior
• health consciousness
• cross-sectional study
• healthcare professionals

Introduction

Climate change is recognized as one of the most important problems confronting humanity (Stocker et al. 2013). Increasingly, it is understood that mitigating climate change requires both high-level policy actions as well as individual behavior changes. In particular, individual lifestyle is one of the most influential factors for environmental change and chronic disease. The rapid expansion of economic activities and modern ways of living since the industrial revolution have resulted in significant changes in the global climate and ecosystems, due to consumption of natural resources including fossil fuels, tropical forests and other natural habitats, as well as water systems and fish stocks (Myers and Patz 2009; Pretty 2013; IPCC 2014). Modern lifestyles also go hand in hand with increased risk of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and chronic respiratory diseases, all of which account for the majority of premature deaths worldwide (Beaglehole et al. 2011; WHO 2017). Therefore, establishing sustainable political measures and interventions to provide more opportunities for individuals to maintain healthy and pro-environmental behavior is urgent, for the sake of both the environment and public health.

The pressing need to tackle environmental and health challenges has connected these two fields (McMichael 2014). In the emerging field of ‘planetary health’, referring to the ‘health of human civilization and the state of the natural systems on which it depends’ (Whitmee et al. 2015), there is an increase in research examining the relationship between pro-environmental behavior and health behavior. For example, preceding systematic reviews reported the evidence on active travel (walking and cycling for journeys) and physical activity (Lee et al. 2008; Faulkner et al. 2009; Wanner et al. 2012; Schoeppe et al. 2013). With regard to other behaviors, several studies showed the environmental and health cobenefits of vegetarian, organic and locally sourced diets (Frey and Barrett 2007; van Dooren et al. 2014). Beyond travel and diet, the negative environmental and health effects of individual lifestyles including cigarette smoking, waste management and household energy use have also been reported (Action on Smoking and Health 2018; Department of Environment and Rural Affairs 2008). These works suggest the possibility of environmental and health cobenefits/coharms, by altering specific behaviors.

In order to encourage behaviors bringing about environmental and health cobenefits, it is important to understand underlying factors that create behavior change for sustainable lifestyles. Previous studies showed effective factors for encouraging behavior change in each field. For example, in the environmental field, prior research has identified a variety of factors that influence pro-environmental behavior, including responsibility, motives, knowledge, values, attitudes and locus of control (Hines et al. 1987; Stern et al. 1993; Han et al. 2011). Likewise, in the field of public health, there has been a range of evidence about behavioral science theories that refers to predictive factors of health behavior such as intention, attitudes, social norms and self-efficacy, among others (Glanz et al. 2008). However, there is still scarce evidence about underlying factors that affect both pro-environmental behavior and health behavior simultaneously.

One possible predictive factor affecting both pro-environmental behavior and health behavior is health consciousness. Health consciousness refers to a psychological state where an individual is aware of and involved in his/her health condition (Gould 1990). There is a line of evidence about the positive associations between health consciousness and health behaviors (such as health information seeking, exercise and purchase of organic food) (Gould 1990; Lockie et al. 2004; Iversen and Kraft 2006); between health consciousness and pro-environmental behaviors (Ture and Ganesh 2012); and health consciousness and anticonsumption attitudes (i.e. an attitude that is opposed to consumerism, and the continual buying and consuming of material possessions) (Kaynak and Ekşi 2014). Given these works, we hypothesize that health consciousness is an underlying variable for both pro-environmental behavior and health behavior. Beyond individual attitudes, it may also be worth considering physical and normative factors that provide opportunities for or barriers against a targeted action (Ajzen 1991). That is, people in a place where there is a strong policy promoting a specific pro-environmental behavior should be more likely to take action. Nevertheless, to our knowledge, no study has provided evidence about the interplay between health consciousness and pro-environmental behavior under specific physical and normative conditions.

Thus, the purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between health consciousness and pro-environmental behavior in Japan, where the systems and social norms for a typical pro-environmental behavior—recycling—was existed nationwide (The Ministry of the Environment 2014). Specifically, we investigated whether health consciousness is correlated with two pro-environmental behaviors: recycling and green purchasing (i.e. buying goods with less environmental burden). Green purchasing has been less supported by standardized systems than recycling in Japan. Also, we sought to examine whether intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior is correlated with the two pro-environmental behaviors. To this end, we conducted a survey of health professionals in a hospital chosen for its cooperative agreement with the present study.

In this article, we first described the study design, data sources, measures and method of statistical analysis. In particular, a variable generation process of health consciousness and pro-environmental behavior based on factor analyses were explained. Subsequently, after showing the results of descriptive analyses and factor analyses, we presented the results of multivariate linear regression analyses examining associations between (1) health consciousness and the two pro-environmental behaviors and (2) intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior and the two pro-environmental behaviors. In the discussion section, we reported on possible explanations of our analysis and results, based on considerations of the roles of physical and normative conditions and policies for pro-environmental behaviors. This was followed by a presentation of the potential implications for practitioners and researchers. Finally, we concluded by considering potential advantages and limitations of this study.

Materials and methods

Study design

We conducted a cross-sectional survey examining the association between (1) health consciousness and pro-environmental behavior and (2) intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior and actual health behavior, using self-reported survey data among health professionals. Saitama Kyodo Hospital, which is actively engaged in environmental conservation, was selected as the study location, based on its cooperative agreement with the present study. All permanent employees (mainly health professionals) of Saitama Kyodo Hospital, in Saitama Prefecture, Japan, were given the opportunity to participate in the study during February and March 2018. Of the 584 employees sent a questionnaire and consent form, 297 (50.9%) agreed to participate and returned the questionnaire before the end of March 2018.

Measures

Dependent variables

Pro-environmental behavior

Pro-environmental behavior refers to behavior that consciously seeks to minimize the negative impact of one’s actions on the natural and built world (Kollmuss and Agyeman 2002). Homburg and Stolberg divided pro-environmental behavior into four categories, including environmental activism (e.g. active involvement in environmental organizations), nonactivist behavior in the public sphere (e.g. petitioning on environmental issues), private sphere environmentalism (e.g. purchasing organically grown foods and recycling), and behavior in organizations (Homburg and Stolberg 2006). Drawing on previous studies (Bohlen et al. 1993), we used 11 items to measure actual pro-environmental behaviors, such as recycling and consumption of environmentally friendly products. Based on factor analysis, these were grouped into two categories: ‘recycling’ and ‘green purchasing’ (Table A1). For example, an item for measuring recycling behavior is ‘recycling paper’. Another item to measure consumption of environmentally friendly products is ‘choose the environmentally friendly alternative if one of a similar price is available’. We used a five-point Likert scale ranging from ‘never’ (1) to ‘very often’ (5). Based on factor analysis, each participant obtained a factor score: higher scores indicated greater pro-environmental behavior.

Independent variables

Health consciousness

Health consciousness is the degree to which someone attends to or focuses on his or her health. It also includes an inner state of self-attention to self-relevant cues reflected in thoughts and somatic feeling (Gould 1990). Health consciousness has been categorized into four key factors: Health Self-Consciousness (HCSC), Health Involvement (HI), Health Self-Monitoring (HSM) and Health Alertness (HA). Considering that these four factors correlate with similar health behaviors, the present study focuses on HCSC. Health consciousness was measured by three items, based on previous study (Gould 1990) that measured HCSC by factor analysis (Table A2). The scale includes items ‘I reflect about my health a lot’, ‘I’m very self-conscious about my health’ and ‘I’m generally attentive to my inner feeling about my health’. Respondents were asked to report their HCSC on a five-point Likert scale ranging from ‘never’ (1) to ‘very often’ (5). Based on factor analysis, each participant obtained a factor score: higher scores indicated greater health consciousness (HCSC).

Intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior

Intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior applied the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen 1991), and was also measured to assess the effect of environmental motives on health behavior. Respondents were asked to report their intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior on a four-point Likert scale ranging from ‘disagree’ (1) to ‘agree’ (4).

Covariates

Age, sex, employment position, income, education and pro-environmental knowledge were used as covariates. We measured income via a question ‘How much is your annual household income before taxes and insurance costs are paid?’ Participants chose an answer from ‘less than 20,000 USD’, ‘20,000–30,000 USD’, ‘30,000–40,000 USD’, ‘40,000–50,000 USD’, ‘50,000–60,000 USD’, ‘60,000–70,000 USD’, ‘70,000–80,000 USD’, ‘80,000–90,000 USD’, ‘90,000–100,000 USD’ and ‘more than 100,000 USD’. Likewise, we measured education via a question ‘Which of the following is your final academic background?’ Participants chose an answer from ‘junior high school’, ‘high school’, ‘collage or technical school’, ‘university’ and ‘graduate school’. Furthermore, we measured pro-environmental knowledge as possible confounder to conduct pro-environmental behavior. Participants were asked five questions including: ‘Do you usually set the temperature of heating to 20°C?’, ‘Do you usually set the temperature of air conditioner to 28°C?’, ‘Do you usually use LED light bulb?’, ‘Do you usually buy home appliances (e.g. Television) with high energy saving performance?’ and ‘Do you usually reduce the brightness of the TV screen and set it to energy saving mode?’ We summed the number of ‘yes’ answers among these questions, and used it as score for pro-environmental knowledge. These questions were made based on energy saving information by the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) in Japan (The Ministry of the Environment 2018).

Statistical analysis

Descriptive analysis was conducted to summarize participants’ age, sex, employment position, income, education, pro-environmental behavior and health consciousness. For pro-environmental behavior and health consciousness, we performed factor analysis to aggregate the variables as adopted by previous studies (Bohlen et al. 1993; Gould 1990). Principal component analysis (PCA) with promax rotation method was used to explore the correlation factor structure between each item for both measures. Each participant could obtain a factor score for each variable. The raw score was used for data analysis. Subsequently, we computed correlation coefficients between key variables (recycling, green purchasing, health consciousness, intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior and pro-environmental knowledge). Further, we adopted multivariate regression analysis using pro-environmental behavior as the dependent variable. First, we assessed the effect of health consciousness on pro-environmental behavior. Second, we assessed the effect of intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior on pro-environmental behavior. For each analysis, we developed two models: in model 1, health consciousness (HCSC), intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior, pro-environmental knowledge, sex and age were used as independent variables. In model 2, all sociodemographic variables such as employment position, income and education, as well as pro-environmental knowledge were used as independent variables, in addition to model 1. P-values below 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Statistical analyses were performed using R version 3.3.2 (The R Foundation 2018).

Results

Characteristics of study sample

In our sample, 73.7% of participants were female, and 38.4% were aged 20–29. For socioeconomic variables, median income was 45,000 USD/year, and 47.1% of participants answered ‘university’ for educational attainment (Table 1).

Table 1. Demographic characteristics of the study sample (n = 297).

Variables	Values (n, %)
Sex:
Male	66 (22.2)
Female	219 (73.7)
Missing	12 (4.0)
Age group (years):
20–29	114 (38.4)
30–39	59 (19.9)
40–49	75 (25.3)
50–59	29 (9.8)
60–69	10 (3.4)
Missing	10 (3.4)
Employment position
Manager	65 (21.9)
Not manager	217 (73.1)
Missing	15 (5.1)
Income(USD/year)
Median income (Median, IQR)	45,000 (45,000)
<20,000	10 (3.4)
20,000–29,999	27 (9.1)
30,000–39,999	53 (17.8)
40,000–49,999	54 (18.2)
50,000–59,999	34 (11.4)
60,000–69,999	19 (6.4)
70,000–79,999	12 (4.0)
80,000–89,999	19 (6.4)
90,000–99,999	8 (2.7)
>100,000	32 (10.8)
Missing	29 (9.8)
Education:
High school	12 (4.0)
Collage or technical school	131 (44.1)
University	140 (47.1)
Graduate school	4 (1.3)
Missing	10 (3.4)

Descriptive statistics of pro-environmental behavior

Descriptive statistics of pro-environmental behavior and health consciousness are summarized in Table 2. Regarding pro-environmental behavior, nearly 50–60% of participants reported ‘often’ or ‘very often’ for items related to recycling (e.g. recycling paper). Also, 5–20% of participants reported ‘often’ or ‘very often’ for items related to green purchasing (e.g. choose the environmentally friendly alternative if one of a similar price is available). Regarding pro-environmental behavior, nearly 50–60% of participants reported ‘often’ or ‘very often’ for items related to recycling (e.g. recycling paper). Also, 5–20% of participants reported ‘often’ or ‘very often’ for items related to green purchasing (e.g. choose the environmentally friendly alternative if one of a similar price is available). With regard to health consciousness, approximately 60% of participants responded ‘often’ or ‘very often’ for all three variables.

Table 2. Descriptive statistics of pro-environmental behavior and health consciousness.

Variables	Values (n, %)
Pro-environmental behavior:
Recycling paper	179 (60.3)
Recycling glass	192 (64.6)
Recycling plastics	179 (60.3)
Recycling metals	141 (47.5)
Choose the environmentally friendly alternative if one of a similar price is available	123 (41.4)
Choose the environmentally friendly alternative regardless of price	179 (60.3)
Try to discover the environmental effects of products prior to purchase	37 (12.5)
Environmentally friendly detergents	42 (14.1)
Products not tested on animals	13 (4.4)
Recycled paper products	67 (22.6)
Organically grown fruit and vegetables	59 (19.9)
Health consciousness:
I reflect about my health a lot	189 (63.6)
I’m very self-conscious about my health	184 (62.0)
I’m generally attentive to my inner feelings about my health	194 (65.3)

Results of factor analyses

With regard to pro-environmental behavior, a group of four items were significantly correlated with each other, and produced one factor called ‘recycling’. Another seven items that correlated with each other produced another factor, named ‘green purchasing’ (Table A1). Regarding health consciousness, all three items revealed high factor loading and produced factor loading and produced one factor. This factor was named Health Self-Consciousness, or ‘HCSC’ (Table A2).

Correlation coefficients between key variables

Recycling was negatively correlated with green purchasing and positively correlated with health consciousness. Green purchasing was positively correlated with health consciousness and pro-environmental knowledge, while negatively correlated with intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior. Health consciousness had a negative correlation with intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior, whereas it showed a positive correlation with pro-environmental knowledge. Intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior was negatively correlated with pro-environmental knowledge (Table A3).

The relationship between health consciousness and pro-environmental behavior

Our first research question is whether health consciousness is a predictive factor of pro-environmental behavior such as recycling and green purchasing. In both models, multivariate linear regression analysis showed that there was positive association between health consciousness (HCSC) and recycling (model 1: b = 0.30 [95%CI: 0.13; 0.47]; model 2: b = 0.22 [95%CI: 0.03; 0.40]), revealing increase in recycling score produced by factor analysis (frequency of recycling behavior) per 1 SD increase in health consciousness score produced by factor analysis (Table 3). On the other hand, there was no association between health consciousness (HCSC) and green purchasing (model 1: b = −0.06 [95%CI: −0.22; 0.10]; model 2: b = −0.02 [95%CI: −0.19; 0.16]) (Table 3).

Table 3. Estimated regression coefficients of pro-environmental behaviors for health consciousness and intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior.

	Recycling		Green purchasing
	β [95%CI]	p^a	β [95%CI]	p^a
Health consciousness
Model 1^b	0.30*** [0.13; 0.47]	<0.001	−0.06 [−0.22; 0.10]	0.446
Model 2^c	0.22* [0.03; 0.40]	0.022	−0.02 [−0.19; 0.16]	0.854
Intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior
Model 1^b	0.11 [−0.22; 0.44]	0.524	0.59*** [0.29; 0.89]	<0.001
Model 2^c	0.21 [−0.17; 0.59]	0.283	0.55** [0.19; 0.90]	0.002

^a***p < 0.001, **p < 0.01, *p < 0.05.

^bModel 1: Adjusted for gender, age, intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior, and pro-environmental knowledge.

^cModel 2: Adjusted for gender, age, intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior, pro-environmental knowledge, and all other socioeconomic variables (income and education).

The relationship between intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior and pro-environmental behavior

Our additional research question is whether intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior is a predictive factor of pro-environmental behavior such as recycling and green purchasing. In both models, multivariate linear regression analysis revealed that there was no association between intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior and recycling (model 1: b = 0.11 [95%CI: −0.22; 0.44]; model 2: b = 0.21 [95%CI: −0.17; 0.59]) (Table 3). On the contrary, there was a significant association between intention for pro-environmental behavior and green purchasing (model 1: b = 0.59 [95%CI: 0.29; 0.89]; model 2: b = 0.55 [95%CI: 0.19; 0.90]), revealing increase in green purchasing score produced by factor analysis (frequency of green purchasing behavior) per 1 SD increase in intention (Table 3).

Discussion

Main findings in the present study

There were two main findings in the present study. First, health consciousness was positively correlated with recycling, while there was no association between health consciousness and green purchasing. Second, intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior was positively correlated with green purchasing, while there was no association with recycling.

Regarding the first finding, the present study showed that health consciousness was related to one part of pro-environmental behavior (recycling). As stated in this article’s introduction, preceding empirical studies showed that health consciousness can be a possible predictive factor for pro-environmental behavior (Ture and Ganesh 2012; Kaynak and Ekşi 2014): however, the results of our multivariate linear regression analysis showed a positive association between health consciousness and recycling, but no association between health consciousness and green purchasing. We might be able to explain this finding based on Japanese context. In Japan, there is nearly compulsory recycling throughout society, such as in workplaces, schools, train stations, hotel rooms and households. The country has passed rigid laws to control waste, and Japanese citizens follow strict recycling guidelines at home (they are responsible for sorting their waste and peeling labels from bottles and containers). Waste is picked up on a daily basis—it should be left outside in clear or semitransparent bags to ensure that the trash is of the right type. After pickup, trash is separated to maximize the recycling process. This is in marked contrast to countries like the United States where recycling is either voluntary or adopted within environmentally conscious organizations: only 16% of waste is sent to the landfill in Japan, as opposed to 70% in the United States (although this difference mainly comes from the fact that most of the trash in Japan is incinerated, Japanese recycling process is more efficient than the United States) (Olmsted 2007). The social context in Japan reflects that recycling is the default option; in other words, even environmentally unconscious people are lead to recycle without thinking about saving the planet. In particular, the present survey was conducted in a hospital which is known for being active in environmental conservation. Thus, it is assumed that an organizational norm of engaging in recycling would be even stronger within the study sample (healthcare professionals) as opposed to an ordinary Japanese organization. In contrast, green purchasing requires voluntary motivation to contribute to solving environmental problems, because there is no pressure to do so in the Japanese context. Therefore, although we assume that health consciousness can certainly be a factor that promotes pro-environmental behavior in our study, it may have been insufficient to cause green purchasing.

Our second finding supports this perspective. Intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior had no relationship with recycling because Japanese citizens carry out this practice regardless of their attitude toward saving the planet (default option). On the contrary, intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior was positively correlated with green purchasing because intention might be one of the predictive factors for ‘voluntary’ pro-environmental behavior, as introduced in a previous study (Pavalache-Ilie and Cazan 2018). Overall, the study’s results indicate that each pro-environmental behavior operates with different mechanisms in Japan. Further examination of these hypotheses could uncover the underlying mechanisms for each pro-environmental behavior.

Practical implication of the results in the present study

The results of the present study yield an important practical implication for encouraging sustainable behavior change. Based on the association between health consciousness and recycling found in the present study, we can consider the possibility of encouraging both recycling and health behavior simultaneously through an intervention aimed at enhancing health consciousness (health consciousness is proven to predict various health behaviors in previous studies (Gould 1990)). In order to steadily and effectively achieve mitigation of climate change and prevention of chronic disease, we need to identify the underlying factors that predict both health behavior and pro-environmental behavior, and then use these to implement effective intervention methods for behavior change. Our finding is significant in the sense that we discovered possible common factors predicting behavior in both fields. However, the results also revealed that health consciousness does not affect all pro-environmental behavior: while the organizational norm and opportunities to do recycling are common in the hospital, there is no incentive to do green purchasing for health professionals. Therefore, our results observing association between health consciousness and recycling and no association between health consciousness and green purchasing are intuitive. Possible implication from our results would be that it is important to design workplace for encouraging employees to conduct multiple pro-environmental behaviors regardless of their voluntary motive. Further investigation is required to develop a more specific strategy to encouraging multiple pro-environmental behaviors including green purchasing aimed toward sustainable development.

Limitation

There are some limitations in the present study. First, this target population is located only in one hospital which has an active environmental program, resulting in limited generalizability. Second, the response rate (50.9%) may cause selection bias of participants. Thus, this study result may not be generalizable to the broader population. Third, our study design is cross-sectional, and therefore we could not discuss causality based on its results.

Conclusion

First, health consciousness was positively correlated with recycling behavior, while there was no association between health consciousness and green purchasing behavior. Second, intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior was positively correlated with green purchasing behavior, while there was no association with recycling behavior. We assume that health consciousness can certainly be a factor promoting pro-environmental behavior, but that it may have been insufficient to cause green purchasing, because of the organizational norm to do recycling in Japanese context. Given that there is previous evidence about relationship between health consciousness and health behavior, health consciousness might be a predictive factor that encourages both health behavior and pro-environmental behavior simultaneously. To encourage multiple pro-environmental behaviors, including green purchasing, the design of workplaces that can take action regardless of their voluntary motives might be a useful strategy. Future research would be required to examine the validity of our empirical findings among the general population under different settings (e.g. less environmental policies), and to develop effective interventions that encourage multiple sustainable behaviors, using these target insights.

Ethical approval

The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Saitama Kyodo Hospital. The authors used anonymized data.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the funders, supporters and participants of the study.

SUPPLEMENTAL DATA

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at here

Disclosure Statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the Ministry of the Environment, Government of Japan, as part of the project ‘Development and Social Implementation of Low-carbon Behavioral Induction System Applying Health Behavior Nudging Method’, conducted in FY 2017; Japan Society for the Promotion of Science [15K16502].

Appendix

Table A1. Promax rotated factor loadings for pro-environmental behavior.

Items	Factor 1 recycling	Factor 2 green purchasing
Recycling paper	0.424
Recycling glass	0.949
Recycling plastics	0.852
Recycling metals	0.807
Choose the environmentally friendly alternative if one of a similar price is available		0.626
Choose the environmentally friendly alternative regardless of price		0.792
Try to discover the environmental effects of products prior to purchase		0.823
Environmentally friendly detergents		0.756
Products not tested on animals		0.653
Recycled paper products		0.580
Organically grown fruit and vegetables		0.595

Table A2. Promax-rotated factor loadings for health consciousness.

Items	Factor 1 health consciousness
I reflect about my health a lot	0.903
I’m very self-conscious about my health	0.980
I’m generally attentive to my inner feelings about my health	0.760

Table A3. Correlation matrices between recycling, green purchasing, health consciousness, intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior and pro-environmental knowledge.

	Recycling	Green purchasing	Health consciousness	Intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior
Recycling	–
Green purchasing	−0.382 (−0.475, −0.280)***	–
Health consciousness	0.180 (0.068, 0.288)**	0.145 (0.032, 0.255)*	–
Intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior	−0.111 (−0.271, 0.056)	−0.439 (−0.564, −0.295)***	−0.279 (−0.425, −0.119)***	–
Pro-environmental knowledge	0.045 (−0.069, 0.158)	0.340 (0.235, 0.437)***	0.211 (0.099, 0.317)***	−0.303 (−0.446, −0.145)***

Bold values denote correlations whose 95% credibility intervals (in parentheses) do not include zero. ***p < 0.001, **p < 0.01, *p < 0.05.