Values and pro-environmental behavior: What is the role of trust?

Freshwater ecosystems provide invaluable natural resources for outdoor recreationists but are at risk of degradation from biological invasions. An understanding of the broad values and behavior of people responsible for the inadvertent spread of aquatic invasive species can inform efforts to mitigate environmental impacts and enhance people’s experiences in the outdoors. However, there are polarized levels of trust held in regulatory communities that can influence how people draw on their core belief systems when making decisions. Therefore, we examined how values worked in conjunction with trust in the regulatory community to predict pro-environmental behavior using data from a state-wide survey of recreational boaters in Illinois, USA. Results from a latent variable structural equation model suggested that intentions were positively and negatively predicted by biospheric and altruistic values, respectively. We also observed that boaters instilled high levels of trust in the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and scientific communities; however, more pronounced relationships between values and behavior emerged for respondents who were more trusting. We contend that values serve as a dependable basis for the development of long-term management strategies given that they are unlikely to change over time, but the translation of these values to behavioral performance depends on trust as an intervening factor.

Management implications

This study sought to understand how polarized levels of trust in regulatory institutions including resource managers and scientists affected outdoor recreationists' intentions to carry out environmentally beneficial behaviors. We found that water-based recreationists' intentions to mitigate the spread of aquatic invasive species were partially explained by their broad values that reflected their deeply seated perspectives on human-nature relationships. We also found that these values more effectively predicted behavior when trust was higher. These findings suggest that management agencies that are more trusted may have a greater ability to anticipate whether their constituents will perform prescribed behaviors to benefit the environment based on their deeply held values.