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Section four “motivations to adopt green housing features” contained the newly developed items measuring different motivations to adopt GHF’s. It is worth recalling that measures were created based on the idea that personal values are inherently linked to environmental concern, with the latter constituting a motivational factor for the

performance of proenvironmental behavior (Stern and Dietz 1994; Stern et al. 1999;

Schultz 2000; Snelgar 2006).

Mean score results showed that a biospheric item had the highest score among the 11 items in the scale—4.96, which is only .01 more than the second highest mean that belongs to an altruistic item. None of these two items was reverse-scored, so the high means indicate favorable attitudes toward the adoption of GHF’s. This favorability is not surprising given that homeowners did practice the behavior in question (i.e., adoption).

The lowest mean score is for an egoistic item addressing concerns about trading aesthetics for greenness. The score of 3.52 indicates neutrality for falling between

“somewhat agree” and “somewhat disagree”. The second lowest mean belongs to the egoistic item “Having green features at home makes me look good”.

Looking exclusively at the descriptive scores, one might conclude that the two strongest motivations to adopt GHF’s are biospheric and altruistic in nature, with egoistic motivations emerging as weaker factors. However, it is important to remember that, as explained by Schultz (2000), types of environmental concern are not assumed to be independent from one another. The author proposes that “objects are valued because of their perceived relation to self and that egoistic, altruistic and biospheric concerns reflect varying levels of the inclusiveness of an individuals’ notion of self” (Schultz 2000, p.

393). Therefore, even if an individual presents predominantly high scores in one type of concern/motivation that does not prevent them from having other types of motivations.

The interpretation of mean scores does not allow for that verification, but regression results do, and will be discussed further in this sub-section.

It is here argued then, that all types of concern/motivations may be predictive of adoption of GHF’s, but each has a different foundation. Nonetheless, it does seem that

“biospheric concerns provide a broader motive for behavior” (Schultz 2000, p. 394) when compared to egoistic concerns. Individuals who tend to biospheric motivations would be concerned about issues at the global level, or more abstract and general. If they were to participate in protests, for example, they would be inclined to participate in events about local issues that directly affect them in terms of time and location, and also in events directed to global issues, such as global warming. The egoistically concerned, on the contrary, would be more active in a local level only. With that being said, one might speculate that, because altruistic and biospheric items lead the results, the homeowners in the sample tend to be more globally active about environmental issues than only locally active.

When interpreting the lower egoistic scores in this study it is important to take into account the already mentioned over-representation of wealthier income groups in comparison to the American population. Because this sample of adopters is wealthier, they might be less concerned about economic benefits originated from savings and more interested in altruistic and biospheric benefits.

Additionally, there is the potential presence of social desirability bias (SDB) in the study. It has long been common knowledge among social researchers that sensitive topics are indeed prone to SDB, to the point where it can pose risks to results. In survey research, the effect of SDB causes respondents to inflate positive attitudes because of social pressures (Babbie 2008). This applies to environmental issues and other sensitive topics such as abortion. Being “against” the environment could be seen as a lack of social

consciousness or mere egoism. On the contrary, being “against” abortion would tend to lead to social reinforcement.

In the case of this study, the influence of such bias was probably decreased in what concerns the dependent measures, for respondents had already adopted them.

However, it is still possible that it affected responses to the attitudinal measures, to some extent. This could possibly explain the neutrality expressed about trading aesthetic quality for greenness. Given what is known about homes, that is, that they are a concrete representation of personal values and character, it would be reasonable to expected that people do care about their homes’ appearance. For instance, the exploratory study

conducted with homeowners found a high mean score for the statement “I would not like it if my house looked too differently from my neighbors’ houses in terms of its buildings materials” (Murarolli 2012). This illustrates that social assimilation can be an important factor not only in other realms of social life but also in the context of green homes. In this study, the neutral results could reflect respondents’ reluctance to admit they care about appearance for fear of social reprimand.

At the same time that results of egoistic orientations can be deflated due to social desirability, it can also cause an opposite situation in terms of behavior. Sometimes individuals go beyond reporting positive attitudes in a survey—they act positively toward environmental issues to avoid social consequences, or to exploit society’s expectations about that type of behavior. For example, when in public such as at an office space, an individual might place papers in a designated recycling bin while not recycling at all at home. Moreover, it has already been mentioned here that the purchase of the iconic hybrid Toyota Prius has been linked to a “feel good” aspect of social and environmentally

responsibility. One could drive a Prius because it is trendy and society sees it as an environmentally responsible behavior, and not because of a concern with the world’s dependency on oil or with the ozone layer.

In both cases, individuals might recognize that their actions are indeed helping the environment, but that is not the main benefit they acquire from the behavior. Those examples elicit the egoistic orientation disguised as altruistic and/or biospheric behaviors, and illustrate the need to empirically investigate why people behave the way they do.

Schultz (2000) not only defends the co-existence of different motivations, he points to the influence of situational factors on motivations when discussing the results of a laboratory experiment manipulating the feeling of empathy, what the author refers to as the malleability of environmental concerns leading to motivations. When asked to

imagine themselves in the place of animals suffering from the consequences of environmental degradation, subjects presented significantly higher levels of

environmental concern in comparison to individuals not submitted to the perspective-taking approach. Therefore, situational factors like the presence of others, involvement with a topic or object, and emotional states can influence concern and motivations to perform PEB.

The motivational items developed for this study were based on social-cognitive theoretical frameworks that have presented consistent results over the past two decades (Stern and Dietz 1994; Stern et al. 1999; Schultz 2000; Snelgar 2006). All reviewed studies have reported the clear differentiation among the three concern orientations, with each loading in a separate factor from the other. In contrast, factor analyses in this study did reveal three factors, but with Factor 1 being a balanced combination of altruistic and

biospheric motivations. Factor 2 holds the loadings for the egoistic items and so does factor 3. The difference between them is that egoistic items in factor 3 are related to affective, or indulgent motivations, while in factor 2 the egoistic motivations are of more practical tendencies.

In light of these results, it is imperative to discuss that the goals of this study are different from those of previous studies, and as a result, the findings are indeed relevant in terms of theoretical contribution. The foundations and development of the value-belief-norm (VBN) theory (Stern et al. 1993; Stern and Dietz 1994; Stern et al. 1995) and the subsequent development of concern/motivational orientations derived from values and valued objects (Schultz 2000) were attempts at categorizing values (Stern and Dietz 1994) and at clustering valued objects (Schultz 2000). The purpose of this study was to develop a scale measuring the relationship between personal values related to GHF’s and GHF’s as valued objects. Thus Schultz’ and Stern and Dietz’ theories and results

provided the basis to develop the motivational items in this study.

Those differences in goals led to different factor results, simply because the factors underlying values in general are different from factors underlying motivational concerns in general. And both of those are inherently distinct from factors underlying the specific type of values associated with the proenvironmental behavior that is adoption of GHF’s. With that in mind, it becomes easily arguable that this study is exploratory in nature.

The fact that both altruistic and biospheric motivations loaded on the same factor illustrates their commonalities. As explained by Schultz (2000), altruistic motivations exist “when a person judges environmental issues on the basis of costs to or benefits for

other people” (i.e., individuals, a community, or all humanity, p. 392). Similarly, biospheric motivations are based on the valuing of all living things. Therefore, both motivations share a “self-transcendent” factor, for they are based on goals that transcend the individual favoring the interests of others and the natural world (Schwartz’ Model of Human Values, in Schultz and Zelezny 2003, p. 128).

The factorial distinction between different types of egoistic motivations also has a theoretical foundation, and it is linked to the concept of involvement. Like motivation to perform proenvironmental behavior, involvement is also based on values, or the extent to which individuals believe there is a connection between their self and certain objects or issues. And the same way that involvement with home features has a cognitive and an affective factor, one might argue that egoistic motivations in this study also demonstrate that duality.

Egoistic items such as: a) the goal of making GHF’s match the interior and exterior aesthetics of the residence; b) the goal of achieving a return on investments; and c) whether GHF’s are too expensive to adopt, are all highly cognitive in nature. For this reason, they are in accordance with the rational-choice model cited by Schultz (2000).

The rational-choice model foresees that “environmental behavior is motivated by the perceived behavioral consequences associated with various actions” and argues it applies

“more to egoists than to social-altruists” (p. 392). This model would explain more

variability in behavior for individuals who place a higher value on the self (in comparison to the value placed to others and to nature) than for those who value more outside-of-the-self objects.

The attainment of comfort at home and the achievement of praise from society (survey items “GHF’s provide me with better comfort” and “adopting GHF’s makes me look good) are the classic example of affective motivations, for they are highly related to pleasure and the value of self-enhancement (Schultz and Zelezny 2003).

The duality of factors in the egoistic motivations suggests that Bloch and

Banerjee’s (2001) argument about the similarities between the constructs environmental concern and involvement is worthy of consideration for future research, which will be further discussed in the Conclusion section.

With regards to the predictive power of motivations to adopt GHF’s, Altruistic and biospheric motivations were statistically significant when motivations were the only predictors, and when controlling for the effect of involvement with home features. The inclusion of involvement decreased the predictive power of Altruistic and biospheric motivations, but its effect was not statistically significant. Although lacking statistical power, the coefficient for cognitive involvement was negative, indicating that the relationship between the above-mentioned theory of rational choices and non-egoistic motivations might be worthy of study.

The main effect of Altruistic and biospheric motivations was also statistically significant in the prediction of importance of all categories of features separately (i.e., energy-saving, water-saving, indoor air, and recycled). This finding suggests that all categories have strong altruistic and biospheric appeal. Additionally, the coefficient of Indulgent egoistic motivations has a statistically significant effect in predicting

importance of all categories but energy-saving features. Its effect on the prediction of importance of water-saving features might be related to Maller and colleagues’ (2012)

findings about water-saving faucets being the most adopted features in green renovations including kitchens. This adoption may be attributable to the aesthetic appeal of modern faucets that also come with water-saving technologies.

A similar explanation might clarify the effect of indulgent egoistic motivations on the prediction of importance of features that improve indoor air quality. Many of those features incorporate the latest technological innovations, but their adoption is not as mainstream as the adoption of energy-saving features. Many modern HAVC features already provide improved indoor air quality, thus it is easy to see that the latter would be more associated with practical motivations, while the adoption of the latest technology on indoor air quality might seem more of a superfluous acquisition; hence the effect of the indulgence factor.

The effect of this factor on recycled, repurposed or refurbished materials is most likely associated with the adoption of antiques and repurposed items that end up

customized to have functional and decorative qualities. One respondent’s response to

“other features” touches on the indulgence factor—“Some trim was sawed by me personally from storm damaged trees, then dried, planned, and routered for base board etc”. The quote illustrates how the repurposing of materials can become a hobby and generate features that contribute to the pleasantness of the residential environment.

The statistically significant effect of Practical egoistic motivations on predicting the importance of recycled materials and features implies the notion that, many times, repurposed materials are less expensive than new ones, especially if they are construction materials like wood and bricks. As long as the recycled or repurposed items are not

considered rare or antiques, they should allow for a faster return on investment in comparison to some new items.

In the model predicting the overall importance of features (i.e., the dependent measure was the composite measure of the weighted factor scores of the categories), all three motivations presented statistically significant results. The result comes at no surprise given that all motivations had a main effect in at least one of the predictions separated by categories.