Toward an Understanding of Ethnic Consumers’ Conservation Behavior: The Case of Hispanics

Abstract

The U.S. population growth has been driven mainly by immigration and the American-born offspring of immigrants (Ortman and Guarneri 2009). The Hispanic population is the ethnic group that is and will continue to contribute to most of this growth and will account for 29 % of the U.S. population by 2050 (Pew Research 2008). Thus, the role of Hispanics in shaping civic life in the U.S. will become more significant in the future than it is today. The growing public concern about the environment has raised questions whether or not immigrants consider the environment in their daily practices. Perspectives range from the post-materialist approach that views immigrants’ concern for the environment as secondary to achieving material goals such as physical and economic security (e.g., Inglehart 1995) to the approach that holds that immigrants have higher levels of environmental concern because the poor environmental conditions in their countries of origin have sensitized them to be more aware of environmental problems (Martinez-Alier and Hershberg 1992). The literature provides mixed findings about environmentalism among Hispanics compared to native-born individuals (e.g., Johnson et al. 2004; Lynch 1993; Noe and Snow 1990; Pfeffer and Stycos 2002). While these studies provide important insights into Hispanics’ environmental attitudes and concerns, little is known about whether these perceptions are translated into pro-environmental behaviors. This study attempts to bridge this gap by proposing a model that explores how core values (i.e., collectivism and long term orientation), environmental cognition (i.e. environmentalism and environmental concern), and feelings about the state of the environment (i.e., environmental affect) are related and influence conservation behavior (i.e., recycling, water conservation, electricity conversation, and energy conservation) among young Hispanic consumers.