How to raise society's pro-environmental standards is far from understood. Living up to pro-environmental standards might be considered a moral duty and people who show outstanding pro-environmental behavior could be viewed as moral exemplars that may serve as a source of inspiration for people. 

Indeed, many findings suggest that people can experience feelings of moral elevation when witnessing acts of uncommon moral virtue that in turn elicit imitation response and the desire to become a “better person”.

 However, other studies also reveal that people can potentially perceive outstanding moral exemplars as a threat both to their self-concept and their social identity due to negative social comparison.

 The project encompasses six studies and advances a new psychological approach to understanding how to use the inspirational power of pro-environmental models to spread pro-environmental behaviors by looking at those boundary conditions that can reduce such inspirational power 

The general aim of this research is to establish an innovative paradigm and theoretical approach for the study of moral attitudes and judgments in order to promote pro-environmental behaviors 

The project is composed by six studies, divided into 3 phases.