Willingness for Continued Social Commitment: A New Concept in Environmental Research

This article validates that the willingness for continued commitment (WCC) is a predictor for manifest action, situated within the theory of continued social commitment and based on a longitudinal study (N = 204) on pollution control. The authors found that the predictive power of WCC can be increased further by taking into account volitional aspects of behavior, including means, aims, and contexts—categories derived from the rubicon Model of Action. In previous research, the authors had found that WCC to proenvironmental behavior depends mainly on a set of cognitive appraisals and emotions related to norms and responsibilities. In the present study (N = 558), the authors show WCC to mediate most of the effects of these responsibility and norm-related predictors and to interact with situational and social context factors in predicting manifest behavior. The authors conclude by discussing theoretical and practical implications of these findings for explaining and influencing proenvironmental behavior.