Conceptualising and Measuring Pro-Environmental Morality: A Review and Proposal of the Moral Expression Theory

Research into pro-environmental morality offers no consistent use of such terminology, suggesting that the concept is not well defined in the literature. To clarify the term, I review the studies investigating the relationship between morality and pro-environmental behaviour. Of particular focus is the metaphoric understanding of how humans relate to the words ‘environment’ vs. ‘nature’. Here, I propose that metaphoric relation to nature is the underexplored factor, which could improve the predictive capacity of climate change-related behaviour studies. By synthesising the current shortcomings of academic scholarship, I outline the theory of Moral Expression as conceptually new framework within which to re-interpret the studies in the sustainability domain. This paper suggests the directions for the refinement of the moral theory of eco-friendly behaviours and their measurement methods in order to close the ‘attitude-behaviour’ gap.