Previous research has shown that biospheric, altruistic, and egoistic values explain more variance in proenvironmental behavior than explained by the self-determined motivation that is linked to such behavior (i.e. motivation fueled by the fulfilment of basic psychological needs). However, these findings might stem from the relatively narrow measures of proenvironmental behavior employed in these studies. In two studies, we investigated the predictive power of self-determined motivation and value orientations in explaining broader measures of self-reported proenvironmental behavior. Our results support our expectation that self-determined motivation would remain a significant predictor of proenvironmental behavior after controlling for value orientations. In line with our expectations, self-determined motivation (vs. values) was more predictive of behavior that was predominantly guided by environmental motives. We discuss the implications of these results for the prediction of proenvironmental behavior.

先前的研究表明，生物圈，利他主义和利己主义的价值观能够解释环境行为的差异，而不是与这种行为相关的自我决定的动机（即满足基本的心理需求所激发的动机）所解释的更多。但是，这些发现可能源于这些研究中采用的相对狭窄的环境行为测度。在两项研究中，我们调查了自我决定的动机和价值取向的预测能力，以解释自我报告的环境行为的更广泛的度量。我们的结果支持了我们的期望，即自我决定的动机在控制价值取向之后仍将是环境行为的重要预测指标。符合我们的期望，自我决定的动机（与 值）更能预测主要受环境动机指导的行为。我们讨论了这些结果对预测环境行为的影响。