ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the results of a randomized survey experiment in the US. It demonstrates that three types of participation can be distinguished on the dimension of instrumental utility, and that activists do indeed perceive this difference. Priming individuals to consider instrumental utility should to over-reporting of the pro-environmental behaviors with the highest expected instrumental utility. Most of the pro-environmental behaviors studied by environmental psychologists would come under the heading of 'direct action' changes in the typology used here, but these actions are not the only type of pro-environmental activism. The environmental movement is made up of many different groups and campaigns, with Green Party presidential candidates, grass-roots demonstrators, and organic business entrepreneurs all claiming to be motivated by the same issue. Self-reported motivations tend to suffer from social desirability bias, where individuals report holding whichever beliefs or motivations are seen as most socially acceptable, rather than reporting their true beliefs or true motivations.
