The role of perceived government style in the facilitation of self-determined and non self-determined motivation for pro-environmental behavior

Most North Americans are concerned about the environment and feel that responsibility for its protection lies primarily with government; however, no research to date has examined the influence of the government's approach toward environmental regulation on the motivation of individual citizens. According to self-determination theory, social contexts that support one's autonomy should facilitate self-determined motivation and social contexts that thwart autonomy should lead to non self-determined motivation and a sense of apathy or amotivation. In this study (n = 283), we examined the influence of perceptions of the government's approach toward environmental regulation on motivation toward the environment and frequency of self-reported pro-environmental behavior (PEB). Using structural equation modeling, we tested the hypothesis that frequency of PEB is predicted by motivation toward the environment and that motivation is predicted by the extent to which individuals perceive the government to be autonomy-supportive versus controlling in the implementation of environmental policies. The analysis revealed that perception of government autonomy-support contributed positively to autonomous motivation and negatively to amotivation, while perception of government control was positively related to both controlled motivation and amotivation. As predicted, autonomous motivation was positively, and amotivation was negatively, associated with frequency of PEB.