Anticipated guilt and anti-littering civic engagement in an extended norm activation model

• Main Authors: Rosenthal, Sonny, Yu, Max S. C.
• Other Authors: Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: Social sciences::Psychology; Norm Activation; Litter
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/161927
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The norm activation model typically concerns behaviors individuals perform to avoid contributing to an environmental problem, which recent research characterized as self-managing behaviors. That research also accounted for behaviors focused on the actions of others, which it labeled other-managing behaviors, finding such behaviors are uniquely related to community attachment and anticipated shame/embarrassment. The current study accounts additionally for civic engagement, which it conceptualizes as a “sibling” of other-managing behaviors. Structural equation modeling of data from a national survey of Singapore residents (N = 949) showed that anticipated shame/embarrassment is related to other managing behavior (β = 0.10) and civic engagement (β = 0.15). In an alternative model, this study added anticipated guilt as a predictor of other managing behavior (β = 0.29) and civic engagement (β = 0.21). In that latter model, anticipated shame/embarrassment was not a significant predictor of either outcome variable. A general conclusion is that the extended norm activation model should include guilt as a predictor of other-managing behaviors and civic engagement. The discussion considers these findings in relation to responsibility denial, emotional arousal, and group-based emotions.