Lecture 2: Environmental Attitudes & Behaviour Flashcards
What are the 2 contrasting ways of understanding world view?
Anthropocentrism = extrinsic value
Ecocentrism = intrinsic value
What is anthropocentrism?
Emphasizes the function of nature of humans i.e., our wants and needs (extrinsic value)
e.g., We came to dominate nature & do what we want with it
What is ecocentrism?
Nature has value in its own right, independent of humans (intrinsic value)
E.g., We need to protect nature
What is the dominant social paradigm?
Humans control & manage the environment, natural resources are infinite, industrial growth is limited to
There was a shift from this paradigm to the new environmental paradigm from the 1970s onwards
What is the new environmental paradigm?
The NSP values environmental protection, balancing the human activity with the needs of nature
Claim it’s important to take into account the environment & resources are not fully at our dispense
What is the New Environmental Paradigm Scale (NEP)?
Developed by Riley Dunlap (1970)
The scale is supposed to reflect either eccocentric or anthropocentrism view
It’s a way of measuring & conceptualizing people’s perspective’s
What is the NEP scale? Part 2
World’s most widely used measure of environmental concern
E.G Xue et al., 2018: Used in a wide range of contexts; used in China to predict global warming risk perception behaviour
What did Capstick et al., (2016) find in UK predicting concern about ocean acidification
Found it was one of the strongest predictors of whether people were concerned about ocean acidification
What are some criticism of the NEP scale?
-Many of the items may just measure environmental concern
-Issues with SR
-Using a scale to predict environmental concern could be problematic (circular reasoning)
-Construct validity is unclear
-Cross-cultural validity is unclear - is it just used in Western countries? (WEIRD)
-It may be outdated as it was made in the 1970s so it might need updating (Bernstein & Szuster, 2018)
What did Keseblr find about growing disconnection with nature?
Tracked prevalence of nature related words in popular song lyrics over time, this has been shown to decrease
But, from 2018 onwards there’s a renewed interest in topics like the climate emergency & growth in protest movements
How was the importance of the environment changed over time?
In 2010: Environmental concern was low in ppl’s priorities
But after 2010, things began to change
-YouGov: asked ppl which issues are the most important
-Pre-Pandemic: 1/3 of ppl claimed it be a top priority
-Dropped during the Pandemic & increased after this
What is pro-environmental behaviour?
Any behaviour that is positive for the environment
E.g., Cycling as pro-environmental behaviour - depends on what roads you live near
How can we distinguish PEB?
Intent vs impact
Choice vs limits to action
Private vs public sphere
Frequent vs infrequent
What is public sphere vs private sphere?
▪ Private Sphere: Behaviour which has direct impact on environment
▪ Public Sphere: Behaviour has indirect consequence on environment
What is intent-oriented vs impact oriented environmental behaviour?
Intent oriented behaviour: Behaviour defined by it’s motivation to do good for the environment
Impact oriented behaviour: Behaviour defined by it’s impact on the environment
Study on intent vs impact oriented? (Lassen, 2010)
Lassen (2010)= Looked at professionals = environmental perspective and analysis of air travel
Found that people are intent oriented NOT impact oriented
Impact vs intent oriented study (Whitmarsh and O’Neill, 2010)
Found that people spend a lot of time doing things with little impact
E.g
Recycling = 70.7%
Cutting down car use = 33.3%
Eating less meat = 8.7%
Impact vs intent oriented study (Whitmarsh et al., 2019)
Study in UK and Brazil
Low impact behaviours e.g turn off lights, avoid littering, recycling = common place
Much less common = reducing meat consumption, encouraging others to stop, avoid buying things
What are the motivations behind behaviours? Whitmarsh (2009)
Diff behaviours = diff motivations
Lightbulbs = save money
Walking / cycling = health / convenience
What are peoples perceptions of PEB impacts? (Wynes et al., 2020)
When asked: what do you think is the most effective?
Transport, reduce GHG
Very uncommon = diet, green energy, efficient appliances
What are peoples perceptions of PEB impacts compared to objective ratings? (Wynes et al., 2020)
Categorised into high, moderate, low impact
In line = switch from SUV to public transport (useful and impactful)
Public thought that switching to plastic bags had more impact than they did
Vegan diet = researchers rated as a lot more impactful than public
What is the difference between private-sphere and public-sphere (activist and non activist)?
Stern (2000) distinguished between the 2. Example -
Private sphere = buying organic food
Public sphere:
Activist = Attend a protest
Non activist = Voting
What needs to happen for a positive shift in PEB?
Requires a combination of individual, social, and systemic changes
Awareness and Education: Increasing awareness about environmental issues, their impact, and potential solutions is crucial
Personal Values and Attitudes: Shifting personal values and attitudes towards environmental sustainability is essential
Recognizing the intrinsic value of nature, developing a sense of environmental responsibility, and cultivating a pro-environmental mindset can motivate individuals to adopt sustainable behaviors
Norms and Social Influence: Social norms and the influence of peers, family, and social networks play a significant role in shaping behavior —- creating a social environment that supports and rewards pro-environmental actions can encourage individuals to adopt sustainable behaviors.
Accessibility and Convenience: Making sustainable options more accessible, affordable, and convenient can greatly facilitate behavior change. For example, providing easy access to public transportation
Incentives and Rewards: Offering incentives, rewards, or recognition for pro-environmental behavior can be effective in motivating individuals
Issues with measuring public sphere impact?
Hard to say what impact public sphere action has e.g the direct impact of voting for a green party
Time lag: Environmental impacts often have a significant time lag between cause and effect. For instance, the consequences of public discourse on deforestation may not manifest until years or even decades later
Environmental issues are often characterized by complex, nonlinear cause-and-effect relationships
Public sphere influence may have indirect and long-term effects that are not easily quantifiable
What do Nielsen et al (2010) argue about private and public sphere behaviours?
Argue that private and public contrast is blurred due to social contexts and roles
E.g:
consumers
Investors
Participants in organisations
Members in communities
Citizens
What do Graziano and Gillingham (2015) show about public behaviours?
Example of how public vs private sphere behaviours can be applied
When solar panels were installed, it raised the probability of other houses in the neighbourhood also installing solar panels
Frequent vs infrequent PEB?
Nielson et al (2020):
Psychological research often focuses on easy and frequently performed PEB e.g recycling / switch off lights
But those that have the greatest impact may be infrequent e.g insulating house, buying electric car, deciding where to live
What do Gardner and Stern (2008) say about efficiency and curtailment?
They say there is an overlap
E.g buying an energy efficient car (efficiency) and driving less (curtailment)
Who is responsible for the most carbon emissions?
Often people ignore who is responsible for emissions
Oxfam (2020) = the emissions of the richest 10% are the same as the rest of the world
What are Schwartz universal values?
Often used in social psychology, organises personal values into a wheel
Key areas:
openness to change, self transcendence, conservation, self enhancement
Self transendence = biospheric and altruistic values (more likely to engage in PEB)
Self enhancement = egoistic and hedonic values
Do values influence PEB?
Biospheric and altruistic values reliably predict PEB (van der Werff et al., 2013)
Self transcedent values reliably predict PEB (Corner et al., 2014) BUT self-enhancement values, and power tend to be negatively associated with pro-environmental behavior.
Do personal and social norms influence PEB?
Persuasive evidence that different types of norms influence level of PEB
- Descriptive norms (e.g see it) for recycling (Barr, 2007)
- Normative appeals for towel reuse (Goldstein et al., 2008)
- Injunctive / personal norms for energy conservation (Gockeritz et al., 2010)
- Interactions between these variables e.g alignment (Keizer and Schultz, 2013)
Do peoples identities influence PEB?
Another way to think about psychological factors influencing PEB is identities
E.g. Do I think of myself as someone who is environmentally friendly?
May mediate the relationship between values and behaviour (Van der Werff, 2013)
Studies on identities and PEB
van der Werff et al (2013):
- environmental self identity is related to a broad range of PEBs
- mediates the relationship between values and behaviour
Whitmarsh and O’Neill (2010)
- Environmental self identity predicted waste, shopping and conservatioN PEBs
- … but not political action, transport PEB, one off domestic actions
Criticisms of studies on PEB?
Assumes that behaviour is a conscious process
Lots of the time PEB = habit etc
3 ingredients of habits
1) frequency
2) automacity
3) stable context
Do habits influence PEB?
Kurz et al. (2015)
Yes, habits have a strong influence on pro-environmental behavior (PEBs)
Habitual nature of environmentally consequential activities:
1. Sociological perspective - Habit: Intra-individual psychological construct that sustains behaviour patterns in stable settings.
2. Social Practice Tradition - Different ways resource intensive habitual practices become established and maintained.
What was Klockner (2013) meta analysis
56 studies
Looked to see whether psychological variables influence PEB
Found that 36% of explained variation in PEB was predicted by psychological variables
What psychological variables predict PEB? (Klockner et al - MA)
Self transcendence
Awareness
Subjective norm
Attitudes
Habit
All come together to influence behaviour
Theory of planned behaviour
Ajzen (1991)
Attitude (+ve / -ve)
Subjective Norm (will others approbe)
PBC (perceived ability)
——-
Intention
——–
Behaviour
Does theory of planned behaviour work for environmental behaviour?
Sheeran (2002): meta analysis
- intentions are predicted by attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control, and intentions are reasonably good predictors of behaviours (explain 25%)
Some of these = environmental behaviour e.g carbon offsetting, recycling
Does theory of planned behaviour predict PEB continued
Fielding et al. (2008): variables are ok but other variables are more predictive
e.g self identity, group membership
Evaluation of theory of planned behaviour
Useful but limited as only uses a small number of fixed variables
Ignores the fact that many environmental behaviours are conducted out of altruistic / moral reasons
Whilst subjective norm in TPE accounts for external motivations (e.g others views) it ignores the altruistic nature
What is the norm activation model?
Schwartz (1977)
States that we need awareness of consequences and to feel responsible
These influence feelings to act
This in turn impacts behaviour
Can the norm activation model explain PEB?
Vaske et al (2015) =
Measured ascription of responsibility, awareness of consequences and this impact on norm salience and eventually reported ecological behaviour
= all impacted behaviour
What is the value-belief-norm model?
Extension of NAM
Proposed by Stern (2000) in an attempt to build a sequential model of behaviour taking into account aforementioned criticisms
Evaluation of the Norm Activation Model (Schwartz)
+ Highlights that people are perceptive of others norms
-Doesn’t account for many factors
-Places a lot of emphasis on the individual rather than collective groups & systems
-May oversimplify norms
Value belief norm model?
Values (biospheric, altruistic, egoistic) — Beliefs (NEP, awareness, responsibility, obligation) — Behaviours (activism, non activist public sphere, private sphere, organisation behaviours)
What model is best at predicting PEB?
- VBN = environmental citizenship, household energy, policy acceptability
- NAM and VBN = low cost
VBN model may have broader applicability and offer a more comprehensive understanding of pro-environmental behavior b/c it incorporates a wider range of factors, such as personal values, beliefs, and injunctive norms
-TPB = high cost / difficult PEBs
What is the social identity model of collective action?
(Van Zomeren et al., 2008)
Takes into account group identity and emotional response to perceived injustice
moral conviction — Injustice + identity + efficacy (whether you think actions can make a difference) —- collective action
Does SIMCA explain PEB?
Bamberg et al (2015) =
supportive evidence for social identity and simca for: student intentions to participate in environmental initiative, local energy groups, attending a talk
Brugger et al (2020) = social identity explained participation by young people in climate strikes
-SIMCA proposes that individuals’ social identities, which include their group memberships, values, and beliefs, play a crucial role in shaping their motivations and willingness to take collective action
-when individuals identify strongly with a particular social group that is concerned about environmental issues (e.g., environmental activists, climate change advocates), they are more likely to engage in pro-environmental collective actions
