Positive spillover : the result of attitude change

Abstract

Behavioral spillover is the phenomenon when a behavior change is accompanied by subsequent changes in other behaviors related to the same goal (e.g., environmental protection). We propose to understand behavioral spillover as the result of attitude change. According to the Campbell Paradigm (see Kaiser, Byrka, & Hartig, 2010), pro-environmental behaviors are an expression of a person’s environmental attitude. The higher the person’s level of environmental attitude, the more behavioral costs the person will endure to perform pro-environmental behaviors. Thus, if the person’s attitude changes, what is commonly called behavioral spillover will occur: For all pro-environmental behaviors, the person’s likelihood of engaging in any one of them will increase. We illustrate this argument by presenting a secondary analysis of data showing that an attitude change results in the frequencies of various pro-environmental behaviors increasing by 3.5% on average. Our proposed model of spillover enforces the idea that those who wish to promote sustainable pro-environmental behavior must inspire changes in people’s environmental attitudes instead of attempting to change specific behaviors.