The Relationship Between Dialectical Beliefs and Proenvironmental Behaviors

Abstract

Dialectical beliefs emphasize constant change, tolerance of contradiction, and holistic perception. This research examined the relationship between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental behaviors. Study 1a showed that stronger dialectical beliefs were associated with fewer proenvironmental behaviors among Chinese participants; this result was replicated in Study 1b. To examine the negative relationship between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental behaviors across cultures, Study 2 recruited both native Chinese and European Americans and replicated the results conceptually by measuring proenvironmental behaviors in a hypothetical shopping scenario. Study 3 provided further generally supportive evidence by considering the influence of both dialectical beliefs and interdependent self-construal on proenvironmental behaviors between native Chinese and European Canadians. Finally, a meta-analysis of the obtained results revealed a weak but significant negative association between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental behaviors. Theoretical implications for cross-cultural environmental research and practical implications for proenvironmental campaigns were discussed.

Keywords

proenvironmental behaviors dialectical beliefs culture dialecticism interdependent self-construal

Researchers have identified several institutional and demographic factors (Ebreo & Vining, 2001; Marquart-Pyatt, 2012; Pisano & Lubell, 2017; Stern, Dietz, & Kalof, 1993) that predict people’s proenvironmental behaviors or inaction toward climate change (for a review, see Diamantopoulos, Schlegelmilch, Sinkovics, & Bohlen, 2003; Gifford, 2011). In the past decades, psychologists have started to engage actively in environmental research by identifying psychological determinants that shape people’s responses to environmental issues (e.g., Feinberg & Willer, 2013; Kashima, Paladino, & Margetts, 2014; Margetts & Kashima, 2017; Stern, 2000; Zaval, Markowitz, & Weber, 2015; for a review, Gifford, 2014). Personality traits (Milfont & Sibley, 2012), values (e.g., Inglehart, 1997; Kilbourne & Pickett, 2008; Schwartz, 1994; Stern & Dietz, 1994; Stern, Dietz, Abel, Guagnano, & Kalof, 1999), attitudes (e.g., Eom, Kim, Sherman, & Ishii, 2016; Fransson & Gärling, 1999; Gosling & Williams, 2010; Schultz, 2001; Schultz, Nolan, Cialdini, Goldstein, & Griskevicius, 2007; Schultz, Shriver, Tabanico, & Khazian, 2004; Tam, 2013), norms (e.g., Schultz et al., 2007), and beliefs (e.g., Corral-Verdugo, Carrus, Bonnes, Moser, & Sinha, 2008; Dunlap, Van Liere, Mertig, & Jones, 2000) were found to relate to proenvironmental behaviors. Despite the existing literature, the examination of psychological determinants needs to be improved further (Clayton et al., 2015; Clayton et al., 2016; Diamantopoulos et al., 2003). For instance, many well-studied psychological determinants, such as environmental concern and the perceived norm of proenvironmental behaviors, are domain-specific to environmental issues. Little is known about how the psychological constructs that are less specific to environmental issues may shape people’s proenvironmental behaviors.

To address this limitation, the current research explored the relationship of a new general belief system, dialectical beliefs, and proenvironmental behaviors. Dialectical beliefs, which are rooted in historic East Asian philosophical ideologies such as Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, refer to a constellation of lay beliefs that emphasize an expectation of change, tolerance of contradictions, and holistic perception (for a review, see Spencer-Rodgers, Williams, & Peng, 2010), which captures the perception of how the world is organized in general. Dialectical beliefs are found to be a general belief system that guides people’s behaviors across various domains, such as stock purchase and saving behavior (e.g., Ji, Nisbett, & Su, 2001; Li, 2018; Li, Masuda, & Jiang, 2016; Li, Masuda, & Russell, 2014; Spina, Ji, Ross, Li, & Zhang, 2010).

In addition, Schultz (2002) argues that cultural background is an important factor in environmental research because culture has a great impact on the type of environmental attitudes cultivated among the members in a given society. Although cross-cultural studies are not rare in environmental research (e.g., Guerin, Crete, & Mercier, 2001; Hadler & Haller, 2011; Levy-Leboyer, Bonnes, Chase, Ferreira-Marques, & Pawlik, 1996; Milfont, Sibley, & Duckitt, 2010; Pirani & Secondi, 2011; Pisano & Lubell, 2017), more research on the impact of contextual factors such as culture is still needed (Clayton et al., 2016; Milfont & Schultz, 2016). In addition, similar to other research disciplines (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010), most prior work investigated people’s responses to environmental issues with Western populations (Eom et al., 2016). Environmental crises are a global issue and require actions to be taken collectively across societies; therefore, research in non-Western populations is important. To address this limitation, this research intended to extend the research of environmental psychology in China, the country with the largest population. Dialectical beliefs, the construct tested in this research, are more prevalent in East Asian societies but also influential in Western societies across different domains (e.g., Li, 2018; Li et al., 2014). The results obtained in this research should have the potential to aid in understanding people’s responses to environmental crises not only in other East Asian societies but also in Western societies.

Dialectical Beliefs and Proenvironmental Behaviors

The beliefs about the relationship between humans and nature are important in predicting people’s proenvironmental behaviors (e.g., Bechtel, Corral-Verdugo, Asai, & Riesle, 2006; Chung & Poon, 2001). Several scales, such as the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) Scale (Dunlap & Van Liere, 1978; Dunlap et al., 2000) and the New Human Interdependence Paradigm (NHIP) Scale (Corral-Verdugo et al., 2008), have been developed to measure people’s beliefs regarding human–nature interaction. These studies obtained accumulative evidence showing that an anthropocentric worldview, a belief system that emphasizes the dominance of humans, and an ecocentric worldview, a belief system that emphasizes the interdependence between humans and nature, play an important role in shaping people’s proenvironmental behaviors.

Unlike the beliefs that primarily focus on the human–environment relationship captured by NEP or NHIP, a new general belief system, dialectical beliefs, is proposed in this research for proenvironmental behavior. Here, dialectical beliefs are a broader and more general concept and are a constellation of lay beliefs about how the world is organized (Spencer-Rodgers et al., 2010). Dialectical beliefs concern the relationship among all elements in the universe generally beyond the specific relationship between humans and nature. As discussed previously, we believe that it is necessary to understand how general concepts can affect people’s proenvironmental behaviors, as these concepts can be influential in shaping people’s proenvironmental behaviors although they typically have been ignored in previous studies.

Generally, people high in dialectical beliefs perceive change to be constant, contradictions to coexist harmoniously, and all elements to be interdependent and mutually affected (i.e., holistic perception). In contrast, people low in dialectical beliefs perceive that future developments are predictable, there is only one truth, and the elements in the universe are independent and separate. Dialectical beliefs are found to be more prevalent in East Asian societies, but the influence of these lay beliefs is also observed, notably, among people in Western societies (e.g., Ji et al., 2001; Li, 2018; Li et al., 2016; Li et al., 2014; Spina et al., 2010).

One notable influence of dialectical beliefs is its impact on the expectation of future development. People with dialectical beliefs generally perceive changes to be constant over time. Specifically, they expect these changes to be cyclical, meaning that the future development will go in the reverse direction from the current status (Ji et al., 2001). Ji et al. found that East Asians, who tend to be more dialectical, were more likely to perceive that the chess champion would lose in the next competition than were Americans, who are less dialectical. In a series of cross-cultural studies, Spina et al. (2010) further confirmed that the relationship between dialectical beliefs and an expectation of cyclical changes exists in different domains. They found that East Asians, who tend to be more dialectical, were more likely than were Canadians, who tend to be less dialectical, to perceive that future development would regress toward the mean when they made predictions about weather, athletic competitions, and health scenarios. For instance, Spina et al. found that following an extremely high number of sunny days from the previous year, people from a dialectical culture predicted fewer sunny days than did people from a nondialectical culture.

More importantly, this cyclical expectation of change among dialectical people may promote a stronger optimistic prediction when the current status is bad. Ji, Zhang, and Guo (2008) found that people from dialectical cultures were more likely to buy a stock in a declining trend than were their counterparts from nondialectical cultures. Recently, Li (2018) manipulated dialectical beliefs among American participants and observed that dialectical beliefs predicted more consumption of available resources during the present among people in the bad status, which may imply a stronger optimistic prediction on the availability of resources in the future.

Possible Influence of Dialectical Beliefs on Proenvironmental Behaviors

Despite the fact that people are frequently educated that climate change (or global warming) is becoming more severe, some people still do not take any action as they feel skeptical about whether extreme climate change indeed will continue (Ecklund, Scheitle, Peifer, & Bolger, 2017). This sense of uncertainty about climate change reduces the likelihood of proenvironmental behaviors (e.g., de Kwaadsteniet, van Dijk, Wit, De Cremer, & de Rooij, 2007; Panno, Carrus, Miricchiolo, & Mannetti, 2015).

Given that dialectical beliefs affect people’s expectation of future development across different domains, including weather, health, competition, and relationship status (Ji, 2008; Ji et al., 2001; Spina et al., 2010), the effect of dialectical beliefs is likely to extend to the expectation of climate change. The warning that climate change is occurring now and will be more severe in the future may be less effective at fostering proenvironmental behaviors among dialectical people. Due to the cyclical expectation of changes (Ji et al., 2008; Li, 2018; Spina et al., 2010), compared to nondialectical people, dialectical people may be more likely to have an optimistic prediction on climate change under the serious warning of it. This perception of less severe climate change in the future may make dialectical people less likely to engage in proenvironmental campaigns, which may in turn reduce their proenvironmental behaviors. Following this logic, we examined whether stronger dialectical beliefs would be associated with fewer proenvironmental behaviors.

Universal Across Cultures?

Prior work found some universal psychological determinants that predict proenvironmental behaviors similarly across cultures (e.g., Kaiser, Schultz, Berenguer, Corral-Verdugo, & Tankha, 2008) and some psychological determinants that predict proenvironmental behaviors differently across cultures (Eom et al., 2016; Pisano & Lubell, 2017; Schultz et al., 2005). In addition to our primary focus, testing the negative relationship between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental behaviors, we also explored whether this negative relationship would be maintained across cultures. This question is important because the answer informs us as to whether the role of dialectical beliefs is functionally universal, which will have practical implications on developing proenvironmental campaigns across different cultural groups. Some research has shown that the influence of dialectical beliefs was similar across cultures (Li et al., 2016; Li et al., 2014), whereas other research suggested that its influence would be stronger in East Asian societies (e.g., Miyamoto & Ryff, 2011). Considering these mixed findings, we did not form specific hypotheses regarding the moderating effect of culture in the relationship between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental behaviors. If the universal negative relationship is observed, we would further explore the possibility that dialectical beliefs could explain the cultural difference in proenvironmental behaviors.

Overview of Current Research

To examine whether stronger dialectical beliefs would predict fewer proenvironmental behaviors and whether this pattern would be similar across cultures, we conducted four studies. First, we recruited participants in China to provide initial evidence for a negative association between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental behaviors in Studies 1a and 1b. To replicate the findings and test whether this pattern would be similar across cultures, we recruited participants in China, representing dialectical cultures, and the United States, representing nondialectical cultures, in Study 2. In addition, we adopted a less direct measure to assess people’s proenvironmental behaviors, which helped minimize the confounding influence of social desirability. Moreover, we explored whether dialectical beliefs and interdependent self-construal, which are found to be more prevalent in East Asian societies and are oppositely associated with proenvironmental behaviors (for the influence of interdependence, Chuang, Xie, & Liu, 2016), would predict proenvironmental behaviors across cultures. We recruited Chinese participants, representing a dialectical culture, and European Canadian participants, representing a nondialectical culture, in Study 3. Finally, to obtain a more precise estimate of the effect size on the relationship between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental tendency, we conducted a mini meta-analysis across the six samples from three cultures obtained in the four studies we conducted.

Study 1a

Method

Participants

A total of 197 participants (mean age = 19.78, SD = .70; 115 females) were recruited from a university in the southern part of China. They received partial course credit for their participation.

Measures and procedure

Participants completed the following scales.

Dialectical beliefs

A 14-item Dialectical Self Scale (DSS; Spencer-Rodgers, Peng, Wang, & Hou, 2004) with a 7-point scale (1 = strongly disagree; 7 = strongly agree) was used. The sample items include, “When I hear two sides of an argument, I often agree with both,” and “I am the same around my family as I am around my friends” (reverse-scored). An average score was computed (α = .63), with higher scores indicating stronger dialectical beliefs.

Proenvironmental behaviors

Adopted from Kilbourne and Pickett (2008), four items were used to assess participants’ proenvironmental behaviors using a 6-point scale (1 = strongly disagree; 6 = strongly agree). The items include, “I buy environmentally friendly products whenever possible,” “I reduce household waste whenever possible,” “I use products made from recycled material whenever possible,” and “I buy organic food whenever possible.” An average score was computed (α = .80), with higher scores indicating more proenvironmental behaviors.

Finally, participants provided their demographic information, including age and gender.

Results and Discussion

Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics of and zero-order intercorrelations among the main variables in all reported studies.

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics and Zero-Order Intercorrelations Among the Main Variables in Studies 1a, 1b, 2, and 3.

	M (SD)	1	2	3
Study 1a
1. Dialectical beliefs	4.32 (0.55)	—
2. Proenvironmental behavior	4.28 (0.99)	−.22**	—
Study 1b
1. Dialectical beliefs	4.23 (0.43)	—
2. Proenvironmental behavior	4.50 (1.07)	−.26**	—
Study 2
1. Dialectical beliefs	3.90 (1.48)	—
2. Proenvironmental behavior (shopping)	2.61 (1.48)	−.05	—
Study 3
1. Dialectical beliefs	4.06 (0.60)	—
2. Proenvironmental behavior	3.87 (1.19)	.09	—
3. Interdependence	4.24 (.70)	.18*	.23**	—

Note. The scale of dialectical beliefs and interdependence measures ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The scale of proenvironmental behavior measure ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree) in Studies 1a, 1b, and 3 and from 0 to 6 products in Study 2.

p < .05. **p < .01.

Gender and age have been found to be related to people’s proenvironmental behaviors (for a review, see Gifford & Nilsson, 2014). To control for the effect of these demographic factors to explore the unique effect of dialectical beliefs, we entered gender and age as controlling variables in all reported analyses.¹

With the effect of gender and age controlled, the regression analysis showed that higher dialectical scores predicted fewer proenvironmental behaviors, b = −.38, SE = .13, p = .003. Study 1a revealed a negative relationship between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental behaviors among Chinese participants.

Study 1b

Study 1a adopted a simple version of the scale to measure dialectical beliefs. Study 1b sought to replicate the results among another group of participants using a full-version scale for assessing dialectical beliefs.

Method

Participants

We invited 144 participants (mean age = 21.53, SD = 2.92; 91 females) from a university in China to complete an online survey. Participants completed the study and entered a lottery pool for small monetary prizes. The data obtained from 16 participants were excluded because they failed to pass the attention check. Thus, the final analyses include the data of 128 participants.

Measures and procedure

Participants completed the 32-item DSS (Spencer-Rodgers et al., 2018; α = .63) with a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The sample items include, “I find that my values and beliefs will change depending on who I am with,” and “There are always two sides to everything, depending on how you look at it.” They also completed the 4-item scale of proenvironmental behaviors (Kilbourne & Pickett, 2008; α = .85) used in Study 1a before providing demographic information, such as age and gender.²

Results and Discussion

With the effect of gender and age controlled, the regression analysis showed that higher dialectical scores predicted fewer proenvironmental behaviors, b = −.56, SE = .22, p = .01. Study 1b replicated the findings supporting a negative relationship between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental behaviors among another group of Chinese participants using a full-version scale to assess dialectical beliefs.

Study 2

Studies 1a and 1b found that dialectical people reported fewer proenvironmental behaviors among Chinese participants. To explore whether the relationship between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental behaviors would be similar across cultures, we recruited participants from the United States, representing nondialectical cultures (e.g., Li et al., 2016; Ng & Hynie, 2014), and participants from China, representing dialectical cultures, in Study 2. Differing from Studies 1a and 1b, in which we directly asked participants to indicate their proenvironmental behaviors, Study 2 used a less direct measure to assess participants’ proenvironmental behaviors, which minimized the confounding influence of social desirability. Specifically, we assessed how likely participants would be to purchase proenvironmental products in a hypothetical shopping scenario.

Method

Participants

We recruited 53 European American participants (mean age = 38.28, SD = 12.80; 35 females) through Mechanical Turk on Amazon, and 83 Chinese participants (mean age = 19.43, SD = 1.95; 39 females) from a university in China. European American participants completed the online study for US$0.50, while Chinese participants completed the online study for a chance of winning 30 Chinese Yuan.

Materials and procedure

Dialectical beliefs

Participants first completed the 32-item DSS (Spencer-Rodgers et al., 2018) using a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), which was identical to that used in Study 1b. An average score was computed (European Americans: α = .86; Chinese: α = .52), with higher scores indicating stronger dialectical beliefs.

Proenvironmental behavior

To make the measurement of proenvironmental behaviors less direct, we adopted the procedure developed by Eom et al. (2016). Instead of self-reporting their proenvironmental behaviors, participants were asked to imagine that they were going to do shopping for 10 different types of products, such as bread, a notebook, and cups. Participants were given a pair of options for each type of product, and they needed to choose which one they would buy. Among 10 types of products, the binary options for six types of product involved a proenvironmental product. For these trials, participants would choose between one proenvironmental product, which is described as being made of an environmentally friendly material, and one regular product. The remaining four types of products were filler items, containing binary options with two regular products. We counted the number of proenvironmental products chosen by the participants (0–6 products) as the indicator of proenvironmental behaviors.

Finally, participants provided their demographic information, including age and gender.

Results and Discussion

Cultural difference in dialectical beliefs

With the effect of age and gender controlled, the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) analysis indicated that Chinese participants (M_adjusted = 4.07, SE = .07) reported stronger dialectical beliefs than did European American participants (M_adjusted = 3.63, SE = .09), F (1, 131) = 11.17, p = .001, partial η² = .08, which replicated the previous findings (e.g., Li et al., 2014).

Cultural difference in proenvironmental behavior

With the effect of age and gender controlled, the ANCOVA analysis indicated a nonsignificant difference in proenvironmental behaviors between two cultures (Chinese: M_adjusted = 2.86, SE = .20; European Americans: M_adjusted = 2.22, SE = .27), F (1, 132) = 2.62, p = .11, partial η² = .02.

Relationship between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental behaviors between two cultures

To explore whether the relationship between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental behaviors would vary between two cultures, we conducted a hierarchical regression analysis with age and gender as controlling variables (Block 1) and dialectical beliefs and culture (Block 2), as well as their interaction (Block 3), as independent variables. The results showed that the interaction of culture and dialectical beliefs was not significant, b = −.77, SE = .54, p = .15 (Block 3). Dialectical beliefs were associated with fewer proenvironmental behaviors, b = −.53, SE = .26, p = .05, and Chinese participants reported more proenvironmental behaviors than did European American participants, b = −.89, SE = .41, p = .03 (Block 2). These findings indicated that stronger dialectical beliefs predicted fewer proenvironmental behaviors, and, importantly, this pattern was similar between the two cultures.

The mediating role of dialectical beliefs

Although the findings showed a nonsignificant cultural difference in proenvironmental behaviors, dialectical beliefs could still possibly play a significant mediating role (Preacher & Hayes, 2008). Following the procedure developed by Preacher and Hayes (2008), with 5,000 bootstrapping resamples, we conducted a mediation analysis to test whether dialectical scores could explain people’s proenvironmental behaviors across cultures (Chinese = 0; European Americans = 1; i.e., the indirect effect of culture via dialectical beliefs). With the effect of age and gender controlled, the analysis revealed that Chinese participants were more dialectical than were European American participants, b = −.44, SE = .13, p = .001, and higher dialectical scores predicted fewer proenvironmental behaviors, b = −.53, SE = .26, p = .05. More importantly, the indirect effect was significant, indirect effect = .23, 95% Confidence Interval (CI) = [.01, .66] (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Indirect effect via dialectical beliefs in Study 2.

Study 2, using a less direct measure of proenvironmental behaviors, provided further evidence supporting that dialectical beliefs predicted fewer proenvironmental behaviors, and this relationship was similar between European Americans and Chinese. Despite the less direct measure of proenvironmental behaviors, we acknowledge that Study 2 measured proenvironmental behavioral intention, which might not directly translate to actual proenvironmental behaviors. Future studies need to replicate the findings using real-life data of proenvironmental behaviors.

Study 3

Interestingly, we did not observe a significant cultural difference in proenvironmental behaviors in Study 2. The nonsignificant results could be due to the effect of other cultural factors. For instance, a stronger interdependent self-construal, which is more prevalent in East Asian societies (Markus & Kitayama, 1991), was found to foster more proenvironmental behaviors (Chuang et al., 2016). Combining the negative effect of dialectical beliefs and the positive effect of interdependent self-construal on proenvironmental behaviors may lead to a nonsignificant cultural difference in proenvironmental behaviors between East Asians and Westerners. Study 3 tested this possibility by examining the influence of dialectical beliefs and interdependent self-construal simultaneously between East Asians and Westerners. Following existing literature (e.g., Li et al., 2016; Ng & Hynie, 2014; Singelis, 1994), we recruited participants from Canada, representing nondialectical and independent cultures, and participants from China, representing dialectical and interdependent cultures, in Study 3. We tested whether stronger interdependent self-construal would predict more proenvironmental behaviors whereas stronger dialectical beliefs would predict fewer proenvironmental behaviors.

Method

Participants

We invited 112 Chinese participants (mean age = 19.26, SD = 1.92; 70 females, six participants did not report gender) from a university in China, and 86 European participants (mean age = 19.25, SD = 2.25; 56 females, one participant did not report gender) from a university in Canada to complete an online survey. Chinese participants completed the study to receive a chance of winning 30 Chinese Yuan, whereas Canadian participants completed the study for course credit. The data of two participants were excluded due to their failure on the attention check. Thus, 196 participants were included in the final analysis.

Measures and procedure

Participants completed the 32-item DSS (Spencer-Rodgers et al., 2018; European Canadians: α = .85; Chinese: α = .66) used in the previous studies. In addition, they completed 12 items for interdependent self-construal, which was extracted from the Independence/Interdependence Scale (Singelis, 1994), with a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The sample items include, “It is important for me to maintain harmony within my group” and “I have respect for the authority figures with whom I interact.” An average score was computed (European Canadians: α = .81; Chinese: α = .77), with higher scores indicating higher interdependence.

Next, participants completed the scale of proenvironmental behaviors (Kilbourne & Pickett, 2008; European Canadians: α = .87; Chinese: α = .80) used in Studies 1a and 1b. Finally, they provided demographic information, such as gender and age.

Results and Discussion

Cultural difference in interdependent self-construal

With the effect of age and gender controlled, the ANCOVA analysis indicated that Chinese participants (M_adjusted = 4.38, SE = .07) reported higher scores in interdependence than did European Canadian participants (M_adjusted = 4.08, SE = .07), F (1, 184) = 9.03, p = .003, partial η² = .05, which replicated the previous findings (e.g., Singelis, 1994).

Cultural difference in dialectical beliefs

With the effect of age and gender controlled, the ANCOVA analysis indicated that Chinese participants (M_adjusted = 4.32, SE = .05) reported stronger dialectical beliefs than did European Canadian participants (M_adjusted = 3.74, SE = .06), F (1, 185) = 55.90, p < .001, partial η² = .23, which replicated the previous findings (e.g., Li et al., 2014).

Cultural difference in proenvironmental behavior

With the effect of age and gender controlled, the ANCOVA analysis indicated that Chinese participants (M_adjusted = 4.23, SE = .11) reported more proenvironmental behaviors than did European Canadian participants (M_adjusted = 3.42, SE = .12), F (1, 185) = 24.14, p < .001, partial η² = .12, which was inconsistent with Study 2.

Relationship of dialectical beliefs and interdependence with proenvironmental behaviors between two cultures

To examine the influence of dialectical beliefs and interdependence on proenvironmental behaviors simultaneously and explore whether the effect would vary between two cultures, we conducted a hierarchical regression analysis. We entered age and gender as controlling variables (Block 1) and dialectical beliefs, interdependence, and culture (Block 2), as well as the interaction of dialectical beliefs and culture and the interaction of interdependence and culture (Block 3), as independent variables in the analysis. The results showed that the interaction of culture and dialectical beliefs, b = −.09, SE = .31, p = .78, and the interaction of culture and interdependence, b = −.11, SE = .24, p = .66, were both nonsignificant (Block 3). These findings indicated that the influence of dialectical beliefs and interdependence on proenvironmental behaviors did not significantly vary between the two cultures included in the study. Importantly, higher interdependence scores were associated with more proenvironmental behaviors, b = .27, SE = .12, p = .03, while stronger dialectical beliefs were associated with fewer proenvironmental behaviors, b = −.24, SE = .16, p = .12, although the latter effect did not reach the significance level (Block 2).

The mediating roles of interdependence and dialectical beliefs

Following the procedure developed by Preacher and Hayes (2008), with 5,000 bootstrapping resamples, we conducted a mediation analysis with multiple mediators to test whether dialectical scores and interdependence scores could explain people’s proenvironmental behaviors across cultures (Chinese = 0, European Canadians = 1). With the effect of age and gender controlled, the analysis revealed that Chinese participants were more interdependent than were European Canadian participants, b = −.30, SE = .10, p = .003, and higher interdependence scores predicted more proenvironmental behaviors, b = .27, SE = .12, p = .03. The indirect effect via interdependence scores was significant, indirect effect = −.08, 95% CI = [–.22, –.01]. The analysis also revealed that Chinese participants were more dialectical than were European Canadian participants, b = −.58, SE = .08, p < .001. Higher dialectical scores predicted fewer proenvironmental behaviors, b = −.24, SE = .16, p = .12, but this effect was not statistically significant, which led to a nonsignificant indirect effect via dialectical scores, indirect effect = .14, 95% CI = [–.06, .38] (see Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Indirect effect via interdependence and dialectical beliefs in Study 3.

The findings in Study 3 provided generally supportive evidence for our hypothesis. Two psychological factors, dialectical beliefs, and interdependent self-construal, had opposite effects on proenvironmental behaviors. Specifically, stronger interdependent self-construal predicted more proenvironmental behaviors whereas stronger dialectical beliefs predicted fewer proenvironmental behaviors, although the latter effect only approached significance in this study.

A Meta-Analysis of Four Conducted Studies

Despite the fact that four studies consistently found a negative relationship between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental behaviors, the effect size varied across four studies. To get a more precise estimate of the effect size on the relationship between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental behaviors, we conducted a meta-analysis of the results across the four studies conducted as part of our research.

Procedure

We first converted the Pearson’s correlation between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental behavior measures in each cultural sample in each study into a Fisher’s z transformation of correlation. In total, we got six correlational values (Study 1a: Chinese sample; Study 1b: Chinese sample, Study 2: Chinese sample and American sample, Study 3: Chinese sample and Canadian sample). Since each study contained some differences in terms of measures and cultural groups, we conducted a meta-analysis of the correlations across these six samples adopting the DerSimonian–Laird random-effect meta-analytic approach in the “meta” package in R (Schwarzer, 2018), which usually generates more conservative results.

Results and Discussion

Overall, there was a weak but significant negative relationship between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental behaviors, r = −.16, p < .001, 95% CI = [–.26, –.07]. In summary, based on six samples in four studies from three cultures with measures administered in two different languages and with a variety of proenvironmental measures, we found a weak but significant negative relationship between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental behaviors.

General Discussion

The findings generally showed that stronger dialectical beliefs predicted fewer proenvironmental behaviors in four studies with different cultural groups and different measures. However, the effect size varied across the studies. The meta-analysis of the obtained results revealed a weak but significant negative association between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental behaviors. The current research extended the cross-cultural research in dialectical beliefs (e.g., Ji, 2008; Ji et al., 2001; Spina et al., 2010) and the environmental research related to beliefs (e.g., Bechtel et al., 2006; Chung & Poon, 2001; Watson & Halse, 2005) by showing that a more general belief system, dialectical beliefs, has a significant negative relationship with proenvironmental behaviors. Expectation of cyclical changes induced by dialectical beliefs may make dialectical people perceive greater optimism under the warning of severe current climate change, which may in turn decrease their proenvironmental behaviors.

Despite the small (yet significant) effect size for the relationship between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental behaviors, the importance of dialectical beliefs in shaping people’s responses to environmental issues should not be ignored. Consistent with the argument of Stern (2000), there are multiple factors, such as values, beliefs, and norms, simultaneously affecting people’s responses to environmental issues, which may lead to a small proportion of variance explained by a single factor (Milfont & Sibley, 2012).

Implications

Cross-national cooperation is required to address climate change due to its global nature. Therefore, it is important to understand the psychological mechanisms associated with individuals’ responses to environmental issues across cultures. Recently, there are calls for cross-cultural environmental research (Clayton et al., 2016; Milfont & Schultz, 2016), as culture shapes people’s values and beliefs and in turn substantially influences people’s proenvironmental tendency. This research has implications for research on proenvironmental behaviors across cultures. Extending the research on dialectical beliefs (e.g., Li et al., 2014), we found that stronger dialectical beliefs predicted fewer proenvironmental behaviors across three cultural groups (i.e., Chinese, European Americans, and European Canadians) with different measures (though the effect size was not strong). Although the relationship between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental behaviors was not varied across cultures, which was indicated by nonsignificant interactions between culture and dialectical beliefs in predicting proenvironmental behaviors, a higher level of dialectical beliefs was observed in the Chinese sample compared to the North American samples. Given that cultural values and beliefs are collectively shared by the members in a given culture and are relatively stable (Hofstede, 2001; Li & Bond, 2010; Schwartz, Bardi, & Bianchi, 2000), dialectical beliefs are expected to affect people in East Asian societies extensively and chronically. Because of the extensive scope of the influence of dialectical beliefs, it would be important to explore some potential interventions to reduce the negative impacts of these beliefs to help to alleviate environmental crises. Future research should continue exploring what psychological factors, which are collectively shared by the members in a given society, have negative impacts on proenvironmental behaviors and what interventions could eliminate their negative impacts.

This research may have some practical implications. First, we observed a negative (but weak) relationship between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental behaviors among three cultural groups, including Chinese, European Canadians, and European Americans. Consistent with some previous findings (Li et al., 2016; Li et al., 2014), these results may suggest that the function of dialectical beliefs on proenvironmental behaviors is universal. However, the relationship was tested in a small number of societies. Future research should further examine the influence that dialectical beliefs have on proenvironmental tendency by recruiting participants from a greater number of societies, which may enable us to maximize the chance to detect systematic moderators across cultures. These findings would be important for the development of international proenvironmental programs, as they will tell whether we can develop an international proenvironmental program that is equally effective across cultures or should instead develop different proenvironmental programs that are adapted to the unique context of each society to reduce the negative impact of dialectical beliefs. Second, the current research suggests that alleviating the influence of dialectical beliefs may help to promote proenvironmental behaviors. Previous studies showed that the influence of dialectical beliefs diminished when people engaged in the decision that was important (vs. trivial; Li et al., 2014) or when they were reminded of time constraints (Li, Masuda, & Russell, 2015). Following these findings, future proenvironmental programs may develop some interventions that can foster the perceived importance of and time constraints associated with solving environmental issues, which may help alleviate the negative impact of dialectical beliefs on proenvironmental behaviors, which may eventually promote more proenvironmental behaviors.

Limitations and Future Directions

There are several issues that require consideration in future research. Despite the consistent evidence of the relationship between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental behaviors, the findings were based on self-reported correlational data. Manipulation of dialectical beliefs and behavioral measures for proenvironment behaviors are necessary in future research to confirm causality and ensure validity. In addition, future research needs to test the underlying mechanism of the negative association between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental behaviors, examining whether this would be due to a more optimistic prediction on climate change associated with stronger dialectical beliefs. Moreover, the samples across four studies mainly consisted of college students. People in different age groups may have different living experiences, which may lead to some differences in proenvironmental behaviors across different age groups (Palmer & Suggate, 1996). Future research should recruit different age groups and test whether age would moderate the influence of dialectical beliefs. Furthermore, the reliability of the DSS was not very high among Chinese participants across four studies. Indeed the low reliability of this scale among Chinese was also observed in other recently published papers (Li et al., 2016; Zhang, Galbraith, Yama, Wang, & Manktelow, 2015). Because this scale is the only existing established scale for measuring dialectical beliefs, we did not have alternatives with more satisfactory internal reliability. Thus, the obtained results should be interpreted with caution. The low reliability may be attributed to a higher level of moderacy in responses associated with stronger dialectical beliefs (Hamamura, Heine, & Paulhus, 2008). Future research could consider using a scale that does not contain a midpoint, which may minimize moderate responses and in turn enhance the reliability of this scale. Finally, the measures used in the current research primarily assessed participants’ behavioral tendencies for some private proenvironmental categories of behaviors (e.g., recycling and purchasing organic foods) whenever possible. Such tendencies may not translate into actual, specific, and observable behaviors; thus future research should directly examine the relationship between dialectical beliefs and actual proenvironmental behaviors under different situational constraints. In addition, Stern (1992) proposes that different environmental behaviors may have different causal factors. It is unknown whether the influence of dialectical beliefs would extend to public proenvironmental behaviors, such as signing petitions and joining environmental groups, which may have a stronger impact on policy-making. Thus, it would be interesting to investigate the strength of the influence of dialectical beliefs on different types of proenvironmental behaviors in future research.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The present research was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (71701219), Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation of the Ministry of Education of China (16YJC190011), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (16wkpy27).

Notes

ORCID iD

Liman Man Wai Li

Author Biographies

Liman Man Wai Li, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the Education University of Hong Kong. She studies decision-making processes, social relationships and well-being from a socio-ecological perspective.

Dongmei Mei is doctoral student in the Department of Psychology at Sun Yat-sen University. Her research interests are situated in the fields of social cognitive and affective neuroscience, and decision-making.

Wen-Qiao Li received her master’s degree in the Department of Psychology at Sun Yat-sen University. Her research interests include prosocial behaviors, residential mobility, deviance, and social comparison.

Hajin Lee is a PhD candidate in the Department of Psychology at the University of Alberta. Her research interests include cultural psychology, health and well-being, social judgment, and social relationships.

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