Sport event attendees' pro-environmental behavior in daily life versus in a tourism context.

摘要

Collegiate football games in the U.S. are a growing sector of sport event tourism. While these sport events clearly generate positive social and economic benefits, the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that an average college football game produces 50--100 tons of waste and releases 188--376 metric tons of CO2. To minimize such negative environmental impacts, universities have implemented campaigns to motivate football fans to engage in pro-environmental behavior. However, it is challenging to mobilize individuals' environmental concerns and transform them into action while they are watching games and participating in tailgating. The discrepancy of pro-environmental behavior in daily life versus in a sport tourism context is poorly understood, as most researchers have focused their studies in one or the other context. By employing goal-framing theory (Lindenberg & Steg, 2007) and the Social Norm Approach (Perkins & Berkowitz, 1986), this study examined whether and how event attendees' pro-environmental behavior in daily life differed from their behavior in the sport event setting.;This study employed a quantitative research method. Tailgaters were intercepted for the first three Michigan State University home football game days in the fall of 2013 using systematic sampling procedure. A cross-sectional survey design was used to examine which psychological constructs predict pro-environmental behavior (i.e., recycling) at home versus at tailgating settings. From the on-site intercepted tailgaters (n=1,468), 405 surveys were used for statistical analyses after conducting online and mail follow-up surveys. Descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, multiple regression analysis, paired sample t-test, and mixed between-within subjects analyses of variance were conducted. Results showed that underlying mechanisms of pro-environmental behavior differed in daily life versus in sport event tourism. Personal moral norms, hedonic goals, and perceived behavioral difficulty had effects on pro-environmental behavior in daily life, whereas descriptive social norms had effects on the same behavior in the event setting, after controlling for the effects of age, gender, and habitual environmental behavior. Additionally, event attendees were less likely to engage in pro-environmental behavior at events compared to their behavior in daily life. The degree of decrease in such behavior was different depending on event attendees' perception of destination's environmental responsibility and event attendee types (i.e., tourists vs. non-tourists).;This study discussed different mechanisms across settings. This study also advanced understanding of spillover of the same pro-environmental behavior from daily life to a sport event tourism context. In terms of environmental policy and campaign interventions, practical recommendations included: visualizing descriptive social norms among event attendees; using peripheral cues in environmental campaigns in the sport event tourism context; informing attendees of the destination's greening efforts; and targeting different types of attendees with tailored campaigns. Although this study presented promising theoretical and practical contributions, nonprobability sampling approach limits generalizability of the study findings. Future studies are recommended to replicate the study in additional sport event destinations. Another limitation is that this study did not control the actual behavioral difficulty. It is recommended for future studies to utilize GPS to include actual behavioral difficulty (e.g., distance to recycling containers) in sport event settings to better understand the of spillover effects of pro-environmental behavior.