Why do People Fail to Adopt Environmental Protective Behaviors? Toward a Taxonomy of Environmental Amotivation

Individuals' reasons for their lack of motivation toward environmental protective behaviors were proposed: amotivation because of strategy, capacity, effort, and helplessness beliefs. Confirmatory factor analyses and correlations between the 4 types of amotivation and constructs related to the environment supported the validity of the constructs. A structural model in which helplessness beliefs could be predicted by the other sets of beliefs, and wherein strategy and ability beliefs resulted from effort beliefs, was tested. The purpose of this study was to construct and validate a scale, the Amotivation Toward the Environment Scale (AMTES), that attempts to measure the 4 proposed constructs. 600 S's (aged 18-91 yrs) completed a questionnaire package that was part of a large project on environmental research. All estimated parameters were significant, with the exception of 1 link: amotivation because of effort beliefs did not display a significant relationship with helplessness beliefs. These preliminary results suggest that the AMTES possesses acceptable psychometric properties. The importance of understanding why individuals may be amotivated and the strategies liable to help reduce their lack of motivation are discussed.