Associations of pro-environmental behaviours with hedonic and eudemonic well-being among young, working adults from three European nations

BackgroundA growing body of research demonstrates that well-being is positively correlated with ecologically sustainable behaviours, yet there is still much to understand about the nature of this association. There is a lack of clarity in the extant research as to whether pro-environmental behaviours have a stronger or more consistent relationship with pleasure-based, hedonic well-being or with virtue-based, eudemonic well-being. It is also unclear if a third variable, materialism, which has consistently been linked to lower wellbeing and engagement in fewer pro-environmental behaviours, might explain the co-occurrence of these variables.MethodThe current study addresses these questions in a survey of young working adults across three European nations: the UK, Italy, and Hungary.ResultsThe results showed that pro-environmental behaviours were positively associated with wellbeing in all three countries, including two nations (Italy and Hungary) where this relationship had not previously been studied. Pro-environmental behaviours were positively associated with both hedonic and eudemonic well-being, with no difference in the strengths of the associations. Hedonic well-being was more consistently associated with pro-environmental behaviours than was eudemonic well-being across the three nations. We found that materialism did not explain the relationship between pro-environmental behaviours and wellbeing. We also demonstrated that a range of demographic factors did not diminish the size of the relationship between pro-environmental behaviours and wellbeing.ConclusionsOur findings suggest that pro-environmental behaviours are not only compatible with wellbeing due to a virtuous sense of “doing good,” but they may be inherently pleasurable. We discuss the implications of this finding for two explanations of why well-being and pro-environmental behaviours are related