No CRAB Today! Identifying the Correlates of Individuals’ Climate-Related Abstinence Behavior (CRAB)

Abstract: Considering the ongoing climate crisis, climate-related abstinence behavior (CRAB), defined as an individual’s voluntary tendency to abstain from climate-unfriendly behavior, is pivotal – along with other approaches – to reduce CO ₂ emissions. The current study assesses CRAB across 40 different behavioral aspects (along with corresponding possibilities to enact a given, environmentally harmful behavior, the need to enact each behavior, as well as impact perceptions for each behavior). Principal component analysis on N = 467 participants suggested that the 40 behavioral aspects can be understood as domain-general. However, mixed-effects regression analysis indicated that variability in CRAB was accounted for at the person- and the behavior-specific level: (1) environmental affect, (2) the need to engage in a given, environmentally harmful behavior, and (3) the perceived impact of this behavior were significant predictors of CRAB. A latent profile analysis suggested three interpretable abstinence types. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of our findings.