Can recycling compensate for speeding on highways? Similarity and difficulty of behaviors as key characteristics of green compensatory beliefs

People believe that the effects of unecological behaviors may be compensated for by engaging in alternative conservation activities. The problem is, however, that those who hold such beliefs are less likely to engage in real behaviors. Understanding the structure of compensatory beliefs could potentially minimize this negative effect. In a pair of studies (qualitative and quantitative) we explored two aspects that appear key for compensatory beliefs 1) the similarity and 2) the relative difficulty of behaviors. We found that people spontaneously proposed compensatory behaviors which belonged to the same pro-ecological domain as the corresponding initial behaviors (Study 1). However, participants in the quantitative study agreed more often that they should compensate for one behavior with another when both behaviors belonged to the same cognitive category and simultaneously the compensatory behavior was relatively less demanding than the initial one (Study 2).