Description
A BeWEL agenda: linking Behaviour, Well-being, Environment & LifeResearch focusing on the relationship between personal well-being and environmentally-sustainable behaviour has typically been neglected. Personal well-being as a motive behind, or consequence of, sustainable behaviour has received little or no attention. This paper presents the results of an ESRC/MRC/BBSRC funded project ‘BeWEL’, part of the ‘Understanding Individual Behaviour’ exploratory network initiative, and explores the extent to which factors that encourage personal well-being may be similar to those that drive sustainable behaviour. Ultimately this paper seeks to demonstrate that a ‘double bottom line’ in which sustainable behaviour outcomes result in improved personal well-being and vice versa, exists. BeWEL utilised a novel range of sophisticated methodological approaches across four pilot projects in order to shed light on the relationship between personal well-being and sustainable behaviours. Bringing together the results from the pilot projects which employed physiological techniques (fMRI and skin conductance), quantitative questionnaire data, and qualitative life history and photo elicitation interviews, this paper will seek to present our findings. Specifically, and by linking to growing theoretical work on hedonic and eudiamonic forms of well-being, the paper will discuss: how personal experiences of well-being may influence sustainable behaviour; how undertaking sustainable behaviours may influence personal well-being; and, the role that interacting with nature may have in mediating the relationship between well-being and sustainable behaviour. For example, might different levels of personal well-being influence the type, range and frequency of sustainable behaviours an individual undertakes? Or, might an individual with high levels of personal well-being be more likely to undertake pro-environmental behaviours than an individual with low levels of personal well-being?
| Period | 2011 |
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| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Birmingham, United KingdomShow on map |