Lecture 6 Sustainability & Charity Flashcards
reducing climate change
the most recommended things to reduce emission are the least effective.
the 3 most effective are
- have one fewer child
- live car free
- avoid one transatlantic flight
income and emission
the top 1% holds 50% of the emission. income is a huge predictor of carbon footprint and consumption.
if you can spend more you will
BUCkET model by Brick et al., (2021)
- Belonging (social norms)
- Understanding (change beliefs)
- Controlling (sense of efficacy)
- self-Enhancement (image concenrs; sustainable identity)
- Trust (trust for collective action)
human behavior is driven by core motives, so if you act on those you can change behavior.
SHIFT model by Habib et al., (2021)
- Social influence (social norms is biggest factor)
- Habit
- Individual self (leverage image concerns)
- Feelings and cognition
- Tangibility (make it concrete and easy)
BUCkET and SHIFT in other categories
- social norms
- self-image
- ease of action
- information
social norms
- belonging
- social influence
- trust
self-image
- self-enhancement
- individual self
ease of action
- control
- tangibility
- habit
information
- understanding
- feelings & cognition
3 types of social norms
- injunctive
- descriptive
- dynamic
injunctive social norms
what is the right thing to do.
for example: reusable cups
descriptive
what most others actually do
dynamic
what is becoming more prevalent (trend)
boomerang effect
occurs when you are better than the descriptive norm. reactance, you eventually become worse.
injunctive + descriptive norm
through comparing people we can minimize the boomerang effect.
- people that use the most reduce the most and people that use the least aren’t reducing as much, but not using more
Best for changing behavior
dynamic social norms
when focusing on the shift without giving numbers you overcome the problem that only the minority is doing something. increases self-efficacy and collective action
“more germans than ever are eating less meat” instead of “6% of germans are vegetarian”
self-image in sustainability
positive self image
- accountability
- message tailored to own values (link to identity)
- conspicuous green consumption
- ownership over natural resources
challenges
- avoid difficult information
- moral licensing; good behavior licenses bad behavior.
construal level theory
tangibility and control in ease of action
phenomenon vary in their psychological distance
psychological distance
- geographic
- social distance
- temporal distance (far in the future)
- uncertainty/abstractness
increasing urgengy to act
the percieved distance lowers the urgency to act. this can be changed by
- reducting distance can lead to more concern
- intervention: make threat more concrete
- make actions more concrete
mismatch?
we have not evovled to be afraid of climate change yet. it doesn’t act on our threat response.
habit formation
habit formation in ease of action in sustainability
because pro-environmental behavior can be seen as a self-control problem we should create habits that remove temptations.
information in sustainabilty
to make people act more sustainable we can learn them.
for example most people underestimate the energy used to produce certain things and we can inform them with using easy labels.
however motivation is also needed
field interventions effects?
when studied social comparison had the biggest effect, then financial incentive and the least effective was education.
spillover effect
one pro-environmental behavior affects the likelihood of performing additional pro-environmental behaviors
- positive spillover
- negative spillover
mixed evidence
positive spillover
when one pro-envirnomental behavior leads to
- habit formation
- identity reinforcement
- consistency
for attitudes/intentions
negative spillover/crowding out
when one pro-environmental behavior leads to
- reduced fear
- reduced guilt
- reduced image concerns
no effect of negative spillover for behaviors.
two types of interventions
- i-frame interventions: focus on individual attitudes and behaviors
- s-frame interventions: focus on the system
tend to adopt an i-frame, but s is more effective
backfiring nudges
if people were nudged and told about it they were less supportive of an intervention than when they weren’t told about it.
why do people donate to charity?
people say they do it to help others/make a difference etc. but this doesn’t match their behavior.
few donors pay attention to the impact of their giving by understanding differences in effectiveness and ignorance of most effective charities
example of differences between charities
with $11.000 you can make one wish come true but also prevent 3 kids from dying from malaria.
only a minority of donations goes to the most cost-effective charities
make a wish versus malaria
more realistic reason for donating to charity?
driven by emotional reactions to suffering
empathy as a proximate cause, but empathy is ingroup focused.
prioritization aversion
skepticism of quantifiability; it is hard to choose between charities when they are quantified
therefore donating is viewed as a personal choice rather than something to optimize
aspects of causes we care about
- local causes
- things that have impacted us
- our social group
- similarity
- tangibility
- scope insensitivity
Pete Singer’s child in pond thought experiment
if you have new shoes and see a child drowning you would still save the child even when it ruins your shoes. But you would still buy the shoes and not donate the money.
we should treat everyone as if they are in front of us
scope insensitivity
the idea that more suffering doesn’t lead to more help
- reduced emotional response
- reduced sense of responsibility or ability to help
- grouping as a unit reduces this (family instead of 4 people)
ways to increase charitable giving
- identifiable victim effect
- unit matching
- social norms
- financial incentives
- preference
- solicitation
identifiable victim effect
makes needs concrete, higher emotional response, higher percieved impact and less compassion fade.
unit matching
ask for one and then scale up to make scope more tangible
social norms
tested with donation box in museum. fixed amount of money but amount of donations varied
- with coins most people donated
- amount per donor was more when bills
- amount per visitor has no significant difference between conditions
so coins or bills lead to the same amount, but different ways in which it is donated
financial incentives
tax breaks
matching
preference
splitting between preffered and highly effective
solicitation
more opportunities to give
(avoid donor fatique)
