In an effort to explain pro-environmental behavior, environmental sociologists often study environmental attitudes. While much of this work is atheoretical, the focus on attitudes suggests that researchers are implicitly drawing upon attitude theory in psychology. The present research brings sociological theory to environmental sociology by drawing on identity theory to understand environmentally responsive behavior. We develop an environment identity model of environmental behavior that includes not only the meanings of the environment identity, but also the prominence and salience of the environment identity and commitment to the environment identity. We examine the identity process as it relates to behavior, though not to the exclusion of examining the effects of environmental attitudes. The findings reveal that individual agency is important in influencing environmentally responsive behavior, but this agency is largely through identity processes, rather than attitude processes. This provides an important theoretical and empirical advance over earlier work in environmental sociology.

为了解释环保行为，环境社会学家经常研究环境态度。尽管这项工作大部分是理论性的，但对态度的关注表明研究人员正在隐式地借鉴心理学中的态度理论。本研究通过利用身份理论来理解环境响应行为，将社会学理论引入环境社会学。我们开发了一种环境行为的环境身份模型，该模型不仅包括环境身份的含义，还包括环境身份的重要性和显着性以及对环境身份的承诺。我们检查与行为相关的身份认同过程，但不排除检查环境态度的影响。研究结果表明，单个机构在影响环境响应行为方面很重要，但是该机构主要是通过身份过程而不是态度过程。与早期的环境社会学工作相比，这提供了重要的理论和经验进展。