MEDIATING EFFECT OF PESSIMISTIC EVALUATIONS ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT ON THE RELATION BETWEEN LEARNED HELPLESSNESS AND FIRMS' ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate learned helplessness and pessimistic evaluations of individuals about the environment with their attitudes toward firms' environmental social responsibility behaviors.

The study conducted on 125 business administration students by asking them to fill out a questionnaire, in which learned helplessness was measured by McLean, A. (2003), environmental concern were taken from Dunlap et. al. (2000) and social responsibility survey developed by Karahan (2006) were used.

In order to examine the relationships between the variables linear regression analysis was conducted and to understand the mediating effects of firm's social responsibility multiple regression analysis was used. Regression results revealed that pessimistic evaluation about environment fully mediated the influence of learned helplessness on attitudes of individuals toward firms' environmental social responsibility behaviors.

The implications of the study for research and practice are discussed and some suggestions are made for future research as well as the strengths and limitations of the study.