Relationships between daily affect and pro‐environmental behavior at work: The moderating role of pro‐environmental attitude

Summary Research in organizational psychology has increasingly focused on understanding the determinants of “green” employee behavior. The present study used a daily diary design to investigate relationships between employees' daily affect, pro‐environmental attitude, as well as daily task‐related pro‐environmental behavior (i.e., the extent to which employees complete required work tasks in environmentally friendly ways), and daily proactive pro‐environmental behavior (i.e., the extent to which employees show personal initiative when acting in environmentally friendly ways at work). Fifty‐six employees working in small businesses completed a baseline survey and two daily surveys over ten workdays. Daily unactivated positive affect and pro‐environmental attitude positively predicted daily task‐related pro‐environmental behavior. In addition, daily activated positive affect positively predicted daily proactive pro‐environmental behavior among employees with a less positive pro‐environmental attitude but not among employees with a more positive pro‐environmental attitude. These findings suggest that fostering pro‐environmental attitudes and, to some extent, positive affect among employees could help organizations to promote pro‐environmental behavior in the workplace. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.