A sensemaking perspective on the association between social media engagement and pro-environment behavioural intention

There are continued predictions that user engagement with pro-environmental campaigns on social media could increase the likelihood of users engaging in more pro-environmental behaviours in the future. However, to date, an explanation of the nature of this connection is lacking in both theoretical and empirical research. Building on sensemaking theory, we developed a model in which user engagement was understood as a pro-environmental subjective experience involving a set of meanings (caring and responsibility ascription) related to the users' selves that inspire and guide their thinking and subsequent pro-environmental actions. To test this model, data were collected from 581 social media users recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk (Mturk) and analysed using a partial least squares approach. The results showed that user engagement is likely to involve caring and the responsibility ascription to protect the environment, which subsequently strengthen users’ intentions to behave pro-environmentally. By exploring the sensemaking process through which user engagement fosters pro-environmental behaviour, the findings contribute to the current debate on whether and how user engagement facilitates pro-environmental behaviour.