Psychological wellbeing as correlate of sustainable behaviors

Traditional approaches in environmental psychology tend to consider that most people experience negative consequences from behaving in an environmentally relevant way. Factors such as inconvenience, shame, guilt, discomfort and even hypocrisy are mentioned as feelings related to engaging (or not) in pro-environmental actions. Yet, recent results in conservation psychology seem to demonstrate that pro-environmentallyoriented individuals are likely to obtain positive psychological benefits such as happiness, enhanced motivation, and satisfaction. Therefore, being sustainably may contribute to the wellbeing a person experiences. No studies investigating the relationship between psychological wellbeing -a concept focusing on the development of personal capacities and growth-are detected in the pertinent literature. The aim of this study was to investigate whether an association exists between psychological wellbeing and two instances of sustainable acting: altruistic and pro-ecological behavior. One hundred-andtwenty individuals responded to a questionnaire assessing those factors. The obtained data were processed within a structural equation model, which showed that an enhanced psychological wellbeing was present in those individuals reporting a higher engagement in sustainable actions.