Volunteering, pro-environmental attitudes and norms

In the spirit of previous work in the compliance literature (e.g., tax, littering), we investigate whether environmental social norms affect volunteering in environmental organizations. Using two ‘environmental morale’ variables as indirect measures, we analyze the impact of social norms on the incidence of unpaid work in environmental organizations. In addition, we test whether violation of a specific environmental norm initiates a conditional cooperation response. We explore a large individual data set covering 32 countries from both Western and Eastern Europe, and extend the number of countries investigated to test the robustness of the relationship at the macro level. Our results indicate a strong positive relationship between the proxies for environmental social norms and volunteering in environmental organizations. The relationship persists despite our various robustness checks.

► We investigate whether environmental social norms affect volunteering in environmental organizations. ► We also test whether violation of a specific environmental norm initiates a conditional cooperation response. ► We find a strong positive relationship, that persists when a norm is violated. ► The results provide another piece of empirical evidence for the proposition that self reported attitudes are related to behavior.