Situational factors driving climate change mitigation behaviors: the key role of pro-environmental family

Climate change mitigation behaviors (CCMB) are actions required to decrease the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for anthropogenic climate change. The present study examines the influence of social and physical situational factors on CCMB in a sample of two hundred individuals living in a Mexican city. Participants responded to a series of scales focused on assessing CCMB such as household thermic comfort, pro-environmental family orientation, and perceptions of the city’s pro-environmental public facilities, services, and community values. All of these situational factors were significantly interrelated, which suggests that they all affect CCMB. Yet, according to a structural model, the only factor that resulted in a significant (and more salient) direct influence on CCMB was pro-environmental family orientation. A second structural model indicated that household thermic comfort, pro-environmental public facilities/services, and pro-environmental public values had an indirect effect on CCMB mediated by pro-environmental family orientation.