Consumers' Attributions of Proenvironmental Behavior, Motivation, and Ability to Self and Others Rik Pieters, Tammo Bijmolt, Fred van Raaij, and Mark de Kruijk A computerized survey (n = 1658) in The Netherlands shows that consumers attribute more proenvironmental behavior and motivation. but less ability. to themselves than to other households. the government. agriculture. and industry. Consumers believe that ability has a stronger effect. and motivation a weaker effect. on their own than on others' behavior. in addition. consumers' own behavior is influenced by the behavior and ability of other households. The authors offer implications for public policy and marketing communications. A t national and international levels, the responsibility for maintaining and improving environmental qual- ity is accepted by most nations (Johnson 1993). To improve environmental quality, consumers and other soci- etal actors must behave more proenvironmentally. Con- sumers appear to be aware of environmental problems and the need for proenvironmental behavior. For example, in the United States, a majority of consumers loosely call them- selves environmentalists (Goldman 1991). In The Nether- lands, consumers consistently rate contributing to environ- mental solutions as one of their top priorities (NSS Market Research [hereafter NSS] 1994). In view of this, public pol- icymakers and social marketers "must get people who are aware of environmental problems and who place a high value on solving these problems to act on their concerns" (Ellen, Wiener, and Cobb-Walgren 1991, p. 102). To achieve this, insight into the motivations and abilities that underlie proenvironmental consumer behavior is required. Our study attempts to contribute to this growing insight. Engaging in proenvironmental behavior is a large-scale social dilemma, because consumers must sacrifice favored behaviors for a common goal, which they may be willing to do only if others in society behave accordingly and do not "free-ride" (Dawes 1980). Consumers make attributions about their own and others' behavior in social dilemmas and about the causes and effects of these behaviors (Wiener and Doescher 1991, 1994). Although substantial progress has been made in understanding the role of specific attributions, such as personal effectiveness beliefs and faith in others, in proenvironmental consumer behavior (Berger and Corbin RIK PIETERS is Professor of Marketing, and TAMMO BlJMOLT is Associate Professor of Marketing, Department of Business Admin- istration, Tilburg University, The Netherlands. FRED VAN RAAlJ is Professor of Marketing, Rotterdam School of Management, Eras- mus University, The Netherlands. MARK DE KRUlJK was at NlPO, Amsterdam, during this project and is currently a consultant at B&A Consultancy, The Hague. This research was funded by the Dutch Ministery of the Environment (VROM). The authors thank Gerard Bartels and Jan Verbeek of VROM for their support, and the editor and four anonymous reviewers of the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing for their thoughtful remarks and suggestions. 1992; Ellen, Wiener, and Cobb-Walgren 1991; Wiener and Doescher 1994), systematic research into the attributions that consumers make about their own and others' proenvi- ronmental behavior and into the relationships between these attributions is scarce. This is surprising because "under- standing consumers' perceptions of cause-and-effect rela- tionships would seem to be central to consumer behavior" (Folkes 1988, p. 548) and an important basis for designing effective intervention and behavior-change strategies (Rose, Bearden, and Teel 1992). The purpose of this study is to examine attributions that consumers make about the proenvironmental behavior, motivation, and ability of relevant societal actors, that is, their own household, other households, the government, agriculture, and industry. On the basis of the results, we offer recommendations for social marketing and public pol- icy that aim to stimulate proenvironmental consumer behav- ior. We focus on three specific issues. First, we examine the levels of proenvironmental behavior, motivation, and ability that consumers attribute to each of the societal actors. Sec- ond, we analyze the extent to which the proenvironmental behavior of each societal actor is determined by its respec- tive motivation and ability. Third, we explore the extent to which consumers' own proenvironmental behavior is influ- enced not only by their own motivation and ability, but also by the behavior, motivation, and ability of others. In the next section, we delineate the conceptual framework and hypotheses. We test the hypotheses using data from a nationally representative survey of consumers in The Netherlands. Attributing Proenvironmental Behavior Superiority BeliefsAbout Proenvironmental Behavior Are "we" more or less proenvironmental than "others"? Consumers are motivated to hold positive beliefs about themselves and maintain self-esteem (Bradley 1978; Tesser and Cornell 1991). To do so, consumers use self-serving biases and types of reasoning, intentionally and unintention- ally, that lead to misperception and deformation of available information (Bradley 1978). A particular self-serving bias is Vol. 17 (2) Fall 1998. 215-225 Journal of Public Policy & Marketing 215