Pro-environmental behavior in families: A reverse socialization perspective

The importance of adolescents’ influence on family pro-environmental behavior is attracting significant research attention. Drawing from the socialization perspective, the impact of adolescents’ environmental concern and environmental knowledge on parental pro-environmental attitudes and pro-environmental behaviour is investigated. The mediating impact of parental attitude towards an adolescent’s influence and parental belief in the environmental knowledge of the adolescent is also explored. The study also looks at the moderating role of two different adolescent influence strategies. The conceptual model is validated using data collected from 352 parent-adolescent dyads in India. Results show that adolescents’ environmental objective knowledge does not have any impact on parental pro-environmental attitudes and behaviour while environmental concern is a key factor. Overall, parents as learners do not simply play a passive role in the environmental reverse socialization process, challenging the traditional understanding of reverse socialization theory.