Religious stewardship and pro-environmental action: The roles of environmental guilt and anger.

What is it about?

Abrahamic religions teach about stewardship -- the duty of humankind to care for God's creations, including the Earth and its inhabitants. In our experimental study on US Christians, we found that people who watched a video on stewardship (compared to a generic video) felt more anger and guilt towards environmental issues. These emotions motivated them to sign a set of fictional petitions related to environmental protection.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

Given the billions of religious people in the world, religious teachings hold great potential in motivating people to act on the pressing environmental issues we face today. This study contributes to explaining how one such teaching (i.e., stewardship) can motivate pro-environmentalism through emotions.