Chapter 27: Economic psychology and pro-environmental behavior Flashcards
What is pro-environmental behavior?
Any behavior that improves the quality of the environment or reduces a negative impact on the environment
Why is it so difficult to behave in a pro-environmental manner? (2)
(1) Environmental issues are regarded as non-urgent and psychologically distant risks
(2) People who do acknowledge the problem don’t act on it
- Too costly for the short term
- Unaware of effective solutions
- Unable to implement effective solutions
What are the 3 requisites of behavioral change?
(1) The believe there is a problem thus need for change
(2) The willingness to make changes
(3) People can implement such changes
Why is the environment a large-scale social dilemma?
Individuals have to choose between their self-interest and the collective interest, now and later
What are perceptions and evaluations of environmental issues (5)?
(1) They are shrouded in uncertainty
(2) Exact predictions are impossible to make
(3) People do not experience the negative effects of their behavior on the environment directly as it changes to slow
(4) Large part of the world is not yet strongly influenced by indirect effects of climate change
(5) LACK OF PERCEIVED URGENCY!
According to theory of planned behavior, what are the most important predictors of behavioral intention (order) (3)
(1) Attitude towards behavior
(2) Social norms
(3) Perception of being able to carry out the behavior
Why do people don’t like changes and what are biases that explain this? (4)
(1) Change brings uncertainty. We don’t like uncertainty in general thus we don not like change because it introduces uncertainty by definition
(2) Status quo bias = people like to keep things just the way they are. Leaving her options open and requiring no effort to change stuff
(3) Default bias = People tend to show a preference for an option that is pre-filled thus requiring no action (donor registration example NL)
(4) Preference and scope for the present. This is because decisions about the future is never certain while immediate costs of a decision now are easy to estimate.
What makes defaults so effective? (3)
(1) The default requires no action
(2) Implied endorsement –> defaults are (wrongly) perceived as advice from experts
(3) Reference dependence –> consumers adapt to the default and see any negative departure from that as a loss
People with what time preference make more pro-environmental decisions and what effects play in that?
(1) More consideration for the future
(2) Hypberolic discounting = discount rates are not constant over time but seem to decline
(3) Sign effect = gains are discounted more than losses
(4) Magnitude effect = small amounts are discounted more than large amounts
What are 2 ways to influence people for more pro-environmental decisions?
(1) increase knowledge –> provide knowledge about their actions and the actual impact on environment so they don’t choose shit with minimal impact
(2) Increase motivation –> give constant, regular feedback (app?)
What is a social norm?
(1) A behavioral rule for which sufficiently large share of the population knows the rule and when to apply it
(2) Large share of the population acknowledges the need for cooperation and therefore prefer to cooperate
What is the difference between a descriptive and injunctive social norm?
(1) Descriptive = tell people what other people are doing (5% of people do X)
(2) Injuctive = tell people what is commonly approved or disapproved
How can self-interest be used as explanation for NOT doing pro-environmental behavior?
(1) People find it difficult to act for the greater good because they think it is normal to act self-interested
(2) Violating the norm of self-interest creates a psychological discomfort
What are biases or effects that causes people to act self-interest instead of pro-environmental?
(1) Sucker effect = you don’t cooperate if you think you are the only one. You don’t want to be that one fool that is complying)
(2) Drop in the bucket effect = my cooperation won’t matter
What are some advices for policy-makers on how to influence more pro-environmental behavior? (5)!
(1) Focus on immediate benefits to buffer for negative effects of uncertainty
(2) Use green defaults (energy example, default is green and expensive)
(3) Have people look at natural scenes to reduce temporal discounting (e.g. make them more future oriented)
(4) Making donations public increases donation amount (kickstarter)
(5) Tell people what others do to increase pro-environmental behavior
