Going Green Can Make You Happier

Many of us get to travel this summer, and this often means we get to experience the most awesome parts of our planet. Maybe we’ll spend time at a beautiful beach, maybe we’ll be in awe of nature’s vastness when we appreciate spectacular mountain views, or maybe we’ll discover the hidden treasure of various flowers in our local parks. Those moments never get boring, yet for me, they always include a little bit of guilt as well. I feel like our planet is so beautiful, but I’m not doing enough to protect it. I make new green resolutions especially when I travel and see the best parts of nature.

But green behaviors can be hard. It might seem like the most fun activities are also the worst, like traveling, shopping, or eating cherries on a whim in January. New research shows that green behavior doesn’t need to feel like a chore or a sacrifice for fun. Green behaviors can increase your happiness and be good for the planet at the same time.

In Michael Prinzing’s research paper (2024), two studies were conducted. In the first one, more than 180 adults from different countries were notified on their phones several times per day. This method is called experience sampling and is made possible by smartphone survey technology. Each time they were contacted, participants answered a brief survey on whether they had done any pro-environmental behaviors in the last hour, as well as how good or bad they currently felt. This method is especially good for capturing people’s feelings in the moment and the small mundane behaviors that people engage in daily. With traditional survey methods, this would not be possible, because no one would remember for example whether or not they used their bike versus their car last Thursday afternoon, and how happy they were.

Because Prinzing has a detailed understanding of his participants’ daily green behaviors and their happiness, he can see a surprising pattern: The more people show green behaviors, the happier they are! In a second study, Prinzing wanted to understand this pattern better and also test why it emerges. He assigned more than 500 students to an experiment: One group was told to engage in green behaviors tomorrow, whereas another group was told to engage in fun behaviors tomorrow, and a third group received no instructions as a control condition. One might expect that the fun behaviors make people happier because, after all, that’s kind of their point. And indeed, fun behaviors make people happier than not changing anything in the control condition. But interestingly, green behaviors also made people happier, and as happy as fun behaviors.

Why would this be the case? Why do green behaviors make people happier? The most common green behavior that people in the study showed was to walk or cycle, instead of driving. This can be fun in and of itself because we know that physical activity outside makes people happy. Some green behaviors are also social, for example, carpooling if you have to drive, or borrowing things from friends instead of buying them. Behavior that connects us to others typically makes us happier. And finally, green behaviors might give people the feeling of competence and autonomy to create positive change for the planet that they care about. I will keep these results in mind when I travel this summer and will make green resolutions that are good for the planet and my own happiness.