Abstract:

As the pro-environmental behavior has been well studied for 20 years, more and more researchers urge to know how emotion affects the pro-environmental behavior. There is a general conclusion that emotion significantly affects pro-environmental behavior and, compared to recognition, it plays a more important role in pro-environmental behavior. It is the first time that the outbound scholars' studies on the emotion and pro-environmental behavior are reviewed. There are four criteria in the categories and dimensions of emotions in the area of pro-environmental behavior: apparent form, consensual structure, time dimension and ascription of responsibility. Mechanisms for the influence of emotion on pro-environmental behavior can be analyzed by reviewing three types of roles that emotion plays in pro-environmental behavior models. When using extended norm activation model and extended theory of planned behavior, emotion is significantly important due to its crucial contributions in the explanatory power of these models. For the study of pro-environmental behavior, future research should be focused on emotion's measurement paradigm, research depth and dynamic mechanism.

Key words: pro-environmental behavior, dimensions of emotions, NAM, TPB, mediator