Children’s recycling behavior: could it be explained by an extended theory of planned behavior? (La conducta de reciclaje en niños: ¿se podría explicar mediante una teoría ampliada de la conducta planificada?)

ABSTRACT An extended theory of planned behaviour was used to explain children’s self-reported recycling behaviour with an inclusion of parental behaviour and two background factors of child gender and social desirability. Ninety-nine pupils aged 8–11 years and one parent of each participated in the study. Children took part in structured one-on-one interviews, where they responded to questions about their recycling behaviour, willingness (desire) to recycle, environmental attitudes, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control. Parents provided their answers on the compatible behavioural items. In addition, children responded to questions from the short version of the Children’s Social Desirability scale. For the analysis, three models were tested step by step. In the final model, where background factors were introduced, parental behaviour remained the only predictor of child behaviour, while pupils’ willingness to recycle remained to be determined by the perceived behavioural control only. Conclusions and implications regarding study findings are provided in the paper.