Pro-environmental Behaviour of Tourists in Uzbekistan: Application of Protection Motivation Theory

2.2 Protection Motivation Theory

Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) is a theoretical framework that describes how people react to perceived threats to their well-being. An individual's protection motivation is influenced by their perception of the threat and their perceived ability to cope with the threat, according to PMT.
PMT suggests that an individual's protective behavior is influenced by their perception of the threat to their health and their perceived ability to cope with the threat in the context of health behavior. For example, if a person perceives a high level of threat and believes they are capable of dealing with it, they are more likely to engage in protective behavior.
The Protection Motivation Theory, originally proposed to predict behavior in the context of personal health threats (Rogers, 1983; Prentice-Dunn & Rogers, 1986), employs a wider set of predictors than other theories related, and that may enhance our understanding of motivators governing pro-environmental attitudes and behaviour. The basic idea of the Protection Motivation Theory is that people engage in adaptive actions when confronted with (environmental) risks through perceived risk vulnerability and severity on the one hand, and by considering the possibilities to manage these risks through response efficacy and self-efficacy on the other hand. Individuals tend to react to the dangerous situations through two processes according to this theory: threat appraisal and coping appraisal (Rogers&Prentice Dunn, 1997). It explains the impact of persuasive communication on behaviour, with an emphasis on cognitive mechanisms underpinning the rationale to follow or not to follow a recommended behaviour. The PMT combines individual and social constructs to understand the cognitive decision-making process (Rainear & Christensen, 2017). According to Janmaimool (2017), “PMT assumes that individuals’ decision to participate in the risk preventative behaviors is made based on their motivation to protect themselves from threats”.
People compare the costs and rewards of different behaviors and, based on the superiority of each of them, decide to do a particular behavior (Westcott et al., 2017). Such a comparison is done based on two processes of “threat appraisal” and “coping appraisal”. “Threat appraisal” is a cognitive process from the level of threat including “perceived severity” and “perceived vulnerability” (Rainear & Christensen, 2017). “Perceived severity of the threat means the degree of seriousness of the possible harms that is perceived by an individual” and “perceived vulnerability reflects individuals’ perceptions of their susceptibility to the harms” (Janmaimool, 2017). Individuals assess the benefits or rewards of their current behavior based on “threat appraisal” process (Bockarjova and Steg, 2014).
In addition to threat appraisal, “coping appraisal” which means the “individual’s assessment of his/ her ability in responding to the perceived threat” (Keshavarz & Karami, 2016) also has an influence on the decision to do protection behaviors. “Coping appraisal” includes two processes of “self-efficacy” and “response efficacy”. Self-efficacy is defined as the “belief in one’s own capacity to organize and guide the courses of action required to tackle certain situations in the immediate future” (Tabernero & Hernaandez, 2011), while “response efficacy refers to the perceived effectiveness of the recommended risk preventative behaviors”. Eventually, individuals evaluate the costs of suggested protection behavior based on the “coping appraisal” process (Wang et al., 2019). If the cost of the proposed preventive behavior was high, the person is likely to avoid participating in that behavior (Bubeck et al., 2018). Briefly, based on the PMT, high level of “response efficacy” and “self-efficacy”, as well as the lower response cost, lead to the individuals’ participation in the protection behaviours (Wang et al., 2019). Threat appraisal entails risk evaluation based on severity and vulnerability; severity denotes how severe individuals view the implications of a danger, while vulnerability refers to one's estimate of the likelihood that a threat would cause harm(Rogers, 1975). Response efficacy and self-efficacy are components of coping appraisal; response efficacy relates to an individual's expectation that adopting a recommended behavior will eliminate a threat, while self-efficacy demonstrates one's confidence in his/her ability to successfully implement the recommended actions(Bandura, 1997). Response efficacy and self-efficacy improve an individual's chances of engaging in successful protective behavior.
PMT has been used to assess a variety of health behaviors, such as smoking, physical activity, and health screening. PMT has also been used in other fields, including environmental protection and disaster preparedness. For example, PMT also offers another promising theoretical perspective for explaining environmental behavior. PMT suggests that an individual's pro-environmental behavior is influenced by their perception of the environmental threat and their perceived ability to cope with the threat in the context of environmental behavior. Individuals are more likely to engage in pro-environmental behavior if they perceive a high level of environmental threat, such as climate change, and believe they are capable of engaging in pro-environmental behavior, such as reducing their carbon footprint. PMT can be used to promote pro-environmental behavior by providing a useful framework for understanding how individuals respond to perceived environmental threats. Interventions to promote environmental protection and sustainability can be designed by identifying the factors that influence an individual's protection motivation. PMT can be targeted to promote pro-environmental choices to reduce environmental risks. PMT not only focuses on cost and benefits of adaptive behavior that reduce environmental risks, but also considers benefits of current products or practices that increase the likelihood of maladaptive behavior that in turn increase environmental risks. PMT is considering individual costs of adaptive action; but importantly, PMT accommodates aspects of collective action as well (Bockarjova & Steg, 2014). A distinctive feature of PMT is that the model assumes that individuals consider current behavior as well as their expectation of a new behavior in terms of respective costs and benefits when making pro-environmental choices.