The Effect of Future-Tense Referencing on Pro-Environmental Behavior

Can the way a language encodes time influence speakers’ pro-environmental behavior? In a controlled experimental setting, we take advantage of a linguistic feature of the German language that allows speakers to use either the present or future tense when referring to an event in the future. Depending on the treatment, participants read a text about the possible negative future impacts of climate change written in either the present or future tense. Subsequently, we measured pro-environmental behavior using an incentivized task that represents a trade-off between individual short-term financial rewards and long-term environmental gains. The results reveal a positive effect of future tense marking on pro-environmental behavior. We discuss potential mechanisms that explain why future-time referencing might affect individual pro-environmental behavior