Lecture_12_Social Psychology and the Sustainable Future Flashcards
Social Psychology & Environmental Problems
- Social psychological questions are best tested with the experimental method.
- These studies can be used to understand basic psychological processes and to develop theories about social influence.
- Social psychological theories and methods can be used to address pressing social problems.
Conveying and Changing Social Norms
- Injunctive Norms
- People’s perceptions of what behaviors are approved or disapproved of by others - Descriptive Norms
- People’s perceptions of how people actually behave
Invoking Descriptive Norms Exception
- Seeing a single piece of trash (in an otherwise clean area)
- Reminds people more strongly of norms against littering - A completely clean setting
- Less likely to think of the norms
Keeping Track of Consumption
- Some environmental social dilemmas
– Not easy for people to track use of gas, electricity, water, etc. - Making it easier for people to keep track increases conservation
– Water use in England during a drought
– College students’ driving - Providing comparative feedback about how it was doing relative to others increased conservation
“Competition can facilitate conservation”
Inducing Hypocrisy
- Posting notices reminding people to conserve
– Increases compliance a little bit - Asking people to commit publicly to conservation principles
– Greatly increases conservation behavior
Removing Small Barriers to Achieve
Big Changes
- Change attitudes and values, behavior will follow.
– Attitudes do predict behavior under some circumstances.
– Use mass communication to change attitudes.
* Example: recycling - Change people’s behavior is simply to make it easy!
* Example: Providing recycling bins increases recycling
Subjective Well-being
- Positive affect
- Negative affect
- Life satisfaction
Life Satisfaction
The cognitive judgement of each individual’ s life satisfaction based on his or her own standard
Factors that may affect life satisfaction
- Social Comparison: Negative comparison, not for self
improvement - Too high expectation
What should we do to have life satisfaction?
- Build spiritual/mental immunity
- Accept everything with the positive attitude
- It is the good chances to refine or polish ourselves
- Even the bad things, we have something to learn
What makes people happy?
- Having satisfying relationships with other people
- Flow: Engaging in something you enjoy
- Accumulating experiences, not things
- Helping others
Satisfying Relationships
- Spend more time with other people
- Are more satisfied with their relationships
Flow
- Working at something they enjoy
- Are making progress
- Flow occurs when people are “lost” in a task that is challenging but attainable - Reaching a goal may be gratifying
- But then no longer in a state of flow
What about when the goal is achieved?
People adapt quickly to their successes
- In short, pursuing something in an enjoyable way often makes us happier than getting it.
Accumulating Experiences, not Things
- Material things don’t make people happy
- Helping others increases happiness more than does spending money on things for ourselves
- Experiences tend to bring more happiness
- Two reasons:
1. Experiences bind us to others
2. Experiences are more likely to be expressions of who we truly are
Helping Others
- Helping others can make people happy!
- Connects people to others and enhancing social relationships
- Important source of happiness
- View self in a more positive light
Affective forecasting
The extent to which people can predict the intensity and duration of their emotional reactions to future events
- People often make mistakes about what will
make them happy.
The Impact Bias
People generally overestimate the enduring impact of significant positive and negative life events
