COVID-19 risk perceptions and attitudes toward the environment: Evidence from longitudinal data

Abstract

This study investigated the role of perceived risks triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic in enhancing positive attitudes toward the environment, liberal attitudes toward politics, and pro-environmental behavioral intentions. We used participant data (N=4100) from 74 countries collected from the PsyCorona survey, a cross-national longitudinal study, with the main predictors being (1) perceived risk of coronavirus infection and (2) perceived risk of economic loss due to coronavirus. Our predictions were added as covariates using multilevel and mediation analysis, nesting individual and level variables within country-level variables. Results show that the health risk perceptions of individuals positively predict their pro-environmental behavioral intentions, moderated by the positive environmental attitude change as a mediating variable, and the economic risk perceptions of individuals also positively predict their pro-environmental behavioral intentions, moderated by liberal-oriented political attitude change as a mediating variable. Our findings provide great insight into the positive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the environment in terms of influencing human attitudes and behaviors, which could help to increase public environmental attitudes and promote public pro-environmental behavior in post-pandemic development.