Socio-Demographic Determinants of the Better-than-Average Effect in the Context of Pro-Environmental Behavior

Abstract

<p>The overestimating effect of one's tendency and contribution to pro-environmental practices, and underestimating the pro-environmental behavior of others has been noted recently in cross-country studies. The present work is devoted to a detailed post-hoc analysis of the available empirical data on this effect on the Russian sample (N = 109, M_age = 28.3, SD_age = 10.4, 39% men) and identification of the role of socio-demographic variables (gender, age, income, employment, size of city) as its predictors. The analysis showed that the nature of the contribution of the variables under consideration to the respondents' self-estimation and estimation of others with respect to pro-environmental behavior is non-consistent, which is in line with recent studies. On average for all models and statistically significant determinants, the standardized coefficient ???? does not exceed ∓0.25, which formally corresponds to a small effect size. However, given the empirical distribution of effect size typical of social psychology, it is more likely to be medium effects. The prediction power of linear models based on individual socio-demographic characteristics also turns out to be low, the coefficient of determination varies from 0.02 to 0.11. Therefore, it is acceptable to speak about the considered variables as predictors except in relation to resource saving and eco-mobility. The conclusion is made that along with socio-demographic determinants it is necessary to include other predictors in the design of experiments and investigate them more deeply.</p>