Abstract: People tend to perceive themselves as better than average in various contexts. In this article I test if the better-than-average effect (BTAE) also holds for pro-environmental behavioral engagement. Experiment 1 supported that the majority of participants report to be more pro-environmental than others, using a large representative sample. Experiment 2 validated these findings in 3 additional cultures (United States, United Kingdom, and India) and showed that BTAE held for both abstract (other Americans) and concrete (my friends) comparisons. Experiment 3 found that participants overestimated both how “much” and how “often” they engage in pro-environmental actions. Finally, Experiment 4 found weak support for the hypothesis that inducing BTAE are inhibiting future pro-environmental behaviors.
General discussion
The present research aimed to test if people perceive themselves as more pro-environmental than others, a hypothesis often discussed (e.g., Clayton et al., 2015; Gifford, 2011) yet not previously tested empirically. Four studies consistently demonstrated the BTAE in pro-environmental behaviors, using 4,042 participants. The data clearly support a self-serving bias causing people to overestimate their own climate change mitigation, suggesting that most people perceive themselves as more pro-environmental than others. The BTAE of pro-environmental behaviors was validated in four countries (Sweden, India, United Kingdom, and United States) and was found to hold for nine of 10 pro-environmental behaviors and for both abstract (other Americans) and concrete (my friends) reference groups. Study 4 tested the hypothesis that self-serving biases serve as a barrier for future pro-environmental engagement. Data showed that inducing people to perceive themselves as better than average (in terms of pro-environmental engagement) had negligible effects on pro-environmental obligations and weak effects on intentions for future pro-environmental engagement. Although a weak effect could have important practical implications, as the BTAE in pro-environmental behaviors might be a barrier for future behavior (Gifford, 2011), these results should be interpreted with caution and validated by future research.
Validity and implications of the BTAE
The aim of this research was to test the validity and implications of the BTAE. Studies 1–3 focused on validity: assessing external, internal, and content validity by testing if the BTAE would generalize across countries, pro-environmental behaviors, and reference groups and would hold across operationalization’s and methodological variations. Hence, both applied and theoretical aspects of the BTAE were tested. In the light of the “replication crisis” (Nelson, Simmons, & Simonsohn, 2018; Open Science Collaboration, 2015), replicating well-established effects (such as the BTAE) is important for validity—that is, to gain accumulated knowledge on boundaries, generalizations, and implications of psychological effects.
Variability in the BTAE
The strength of the BTAE varied across countries, showing the strongest effect in India (85.7%) followed by the United Kingdom (72%) and the United States (63.7%). The weakest effect was observed in the Swedish sample (51.3%). One explanation, as discussed in Study 2, is that the interpretation of pro-environmental behaviors differed across cultures. Content analyses comparing the Indian versus the U.S.-American sample support this assumption. Yet it is unclear if and how such differences can explain the variance in the BTAE. Another possible explanation is that the BTAE of pro-environmental behaviors is affected by values and attitudes that might differ between the countries. Yet data from the World Values Survey cannot provide sufficient support for this explanation (Ingelhart et al., 2014), showing no noticeable differences between relevant values (i.e., “Looking after the environment … care for nature and save life resources”) in Sweden (M = 2.46, SD = 1.2) versus India (M = 2.54, SD = 1.6). Similarly, the majority of participants prioritized “protecting the environment” over “economic growth” in both countries (Sweden = 65.2%, India = 69.8%). A third explanation might be linked to cross-cultural differences in response biases. Van de Vijver and Poortinga (1997) warned against interpreting intergroup differences in cross-cultural research without examining equivalence. Indeed, several studies have observed substantial differences in response biases such as extreme response styles and acquiescent responding across countries (e.g., Harzing, 2006; Johnson, Kulesa, Cho, & Shavitt, 2005; Smith, 2004). However, further research is necessary to explore the mechanisms underlying these differences in more detail (Johnson et al., 2005). In sum, although the BTAE of pro-environmental behaviors was validated across countries, it remains unclear why the strength of the BTAE varies between countries.
Reference group
Alicke and Govorun (2005) suggested that the BTAE decreases when comparing oneself to a “real person” rather than a more abstract concept (i.e., “other Swedes”). Past research has shown that the BTAE was reduced when asking students to compare themselves with “the person sitting next to them” rather than “the average college student” (Alicke, Klotz, Breitenbecher, Yurak, & Vredenburg, 1995). Therefore, Study 2 tested two reference groups with different level of abstraction “Americans” (abstract group), and “your friends” (concrete group). Results showed highly similar results of the BTAE in the two reference groups (63.7% vs. 62.1% above average). Given that participants are thinking about different reference groups when being asked about “my friends” versus “other Americans” and that these groups differ in their level of pro-environmental engagement, it is noticeable that people still overestimate their own pro-environmental engagement in relation to their “friends.”
BTAE as a psychological barrier
Study 4 was designed to test the hypothesis that the BTAE is a psychological barrier for climate change mitigation (Gifford, 2011). This hypothesis was derived from the research on negative spillover effects, predicting that a first moral behavior might “license” a subsequent immoral behavior (e.g., Blanken et al., 2015). It should be noted that research has also demonstrated positive spillover effects, where a first pro-environmental action encourages subsequent pro-environmental actions (e.g., Nilsson et al., 2017; Truelove et al., 2014). This hypothesis is also in line with a self-valuation hypothesis, increasing self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977), which has been demonstrated to predict behavioral intentions (Ajzen, 1985, 1991). Therefore, one explanation for the weak negative effect on pro-environmental intention is that a dual-process of both negative and positive spillover effects is at work. It could be that the BTAE is fostering pro-environmental intentions for some people while undermining pro-environmental intentions for others. Another explanation for the weak negative effect on intentions is based on the suggestion that the BTAE is a form of availability heuristics (see the following discussion). More specifically, if performing a behavior with a high frequency makes that behavior cognitively available, and thus increases the BTAE, frequency should also moderate the BTAE as a psychological barrier, making high-frequency behaviors more influential than low-frequency behaviors. Past research has identified a number of potential moderators driving the positive versus negative spillovers (e.g., Nilsson et al., 2017; Truelove et al., 2014). Future research should examine if and which moderators might cause the BTAE to foster versus undermine subsequent pro-environmental engagement.
The mechanisms of the BTAE
What are the psychological mechanism driving the BTAE? When analyzing the data from Study 2, the frequency of behavioral engagement was strongly positively correlated with the BTAE effect size. One interpretation of this finding is that performing a specific behavior with a high frequency is interpreted as also performing that behavior more frequently than others. This suggests that the BTAE is driven by the availability heuristic (Tversky & Kahneman, 1973), as people may be influenced by how cognitively available a certain behavior is when evaluating relative performance. Future research should further examine if the availability heuristic can explain the BTAE.
Limitations
As a first limitation, cultural comparison was confounded with means of assessing pro-environmental behavior. In the Indian sample, pro-environmental behaviors were assessed by open-ended questions, whereas predefined questions were used in the U.S. and U.K. samples. Could the differences in the BTAE between cultures have been influenced by the measurement method? Although open-ended versus predefined measurements were not used within the same sample, Study 2 reported an effect of 63.7% above the median, which was similar to Study 3 with an effect of 58.7% to 63.2% above the median. Studies 2 and 3 both used a U.S.-American sample, whereas pro-environmental behaviors were assessed by predefined questions in Study 2 and open-ended questions in Study 3, suggesting that the BTAE was not affected by using open-ended compared to predefined questions.
As a second limitation, when testing whether the BTAE affected pro-environmental obligation and intention in Study 4, order effects were not controlled for. Past research has shown that other compensatory behaviors, such as cognitive dissonance reduction strategies, are affected by order (e.g., Fointiat, Somat, & Grosbras, 2011; Gosling, Denizeau, & Oberlé, 2006). It should however be mentioned that these studies find that the first items are more influential than subsequent items. Therefore, in the present study, it would be predicted that obligations are weaker than intention. Yet we observed the opposite pattern, speaking against the influence of order effects. In any case, lack of randomization should be noted as a limitation in Study 4.
Worse than average
There are circumstances moderating or even reversing the effect. The BTAE may be moderated by both desirability and controllability, such as the effect holding for highly desirable traits but not for traits low in desirability, and that the effect is stronger for high controllable than low controllable traits (Alicke, 1985). It has been demonstrated that people view themselves as “worse than average” when evaluating their ability on difficult tasks (Moore, 2007). For example, students’ average rating of the likelihood of winning a trivia contest was 70% when the contest included easy quiz questions, whereas ratings dropped to only 6% for a contest including hard quiz questions (Kruger, 1999). Although we demonstrated the BTAE in nine of 10 pro-environmental behaviors, these were all everyday behaviors that are relatively easy to perform. Future research should test if the BTAE also holds when assessing “harder” pro-environmental actions.
Taken together, this article consistently demonstrates that the BTAE applies to pro-environmental behaviors; nevertheless, the evidence for the BTAE as a psychological barrier for future pro-environmental behaviors is weak and should be explored in future research. BTAE of pro-environmental behaviors was supported across four countries, testing 10 pro-environmental behaviors, and when assessing both closed- and open-ended questions as well as both concrete and abstract reference groups.
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