ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Environmental Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1625619
Examining the Role of Anticipated Positive and Negative Emotions on Pro-environmental Behavior: An Affective Events Theory Perspective
Provisionally accepted
- Northwest University, Xi'an, China
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Background: Anticipated emotions are important predictors of pro-environmental behavior within the extended theory of planned behavior. However, their mechanisms need further exploration through emotion theories. This study applies Affective Events Theory (AET), a framework originally developed to explain emotional influences on behavior in workplace settings and more recently extended to the context of proenvironmental behavior, to examine how anticipated positive and negative emotions influence pro-environmental behavior, with environmental attitudes serving as a mediator.Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted to measure anticipated positive and negative emotions, environmental attitudes, pro-environmental behavior, and demographic variables. A total of 500 questionnaires were randomly distributed via the Credamo online platform, yielding 442 valid responses.Both anticipated positive and negative emotions positively influence pro-environmental behavior, with environmental attitudes mediating these effects. Specifically, anticipated positive emotions not only exert a direct impact on proenvironmental behavior but also indirectly influence it through environmental attitudes.In contrast, anticipated negative emotions affect pro-environmental behavior exclusively through the mediating role of environmental attitudes. The direct effect of anticipated positive emotions may reflect the approach-oriented motivational function of positive emotions. Meanwhile, the indirect effects of both types of emotions through environmental attitudes suggest that anticipated emotions promote pro-environmental behavior by influencing individuals' perceptions of the human-environment relationship. These findings significantly advance our understanding of the emotional mechanisms underlying pro-environmental behavior and offer valuable implications for designing emotion-based interventions aimed at fostering environmentally responsible actions.
Keywords: Anticipated emotions, pro-environmental behavior, environmental attitudes, Theory of Planned Behavior, affective events theory
Received: 12 May 2025; Accepted: 31 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Niu, Li, Sun and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: He Li, Northwest University, Xi'an, China
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