Psychology of Pro Environmental Consumption

This research on natural medicine producing SMES in the Amazon used an approach based on Schumpeter's ideas, done mainly by researchers from the Economics Institute of Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and the Federal University of Minas Gerais. The first group researched SMES throughout Brazil in collaboration with hundreds of researchers from other developed and emerging countries and constructed an approach used in our case studies. The second group developed an alternative method based upon innovation in emerging spaces, typical for organizations with few resources, weak institutions, and weak governance. With the evident influence of globally famous thinkers and ideas from the Northern Hemisphere, these knowledge networks have articulation among North-South partners. These SMEs have intensive traditional knowledge appropriation. They operate in an adverse context, lack capital, and face technological difficulties, inadequate regulations, and multinational lobby. However, they are making progress and can innovate with singular products based on ingredients from rare ecosystems which need care and preservation.

Keywords: Sciences, Knowledges, Environment, The Amazon, Sustainability, Innovation

By including the context within which consumers' pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors are formed, this research provides a comprehensive delineation of the process that leads from context to behavior. This is the first study to examine context factors as subjective perceptions made by consumers about aspects of their own situation, specifically the extent to which they perceive having more or less time, money, and power available. In contrast to previous research considering one type of behavior (such as recycling), this study recognizes pro-environmental behavior as a heterogeneous, multi-dimensional construct, and includes both public and private sphere behaviors. Pro-environmental business managers and policy-makers may not be in a position to impact objective contextual factors that consumers face, however, they may influence perceptions and attitudes. This study identifies specifically which variables may be of more interest to modulate, so as to increase proenvironmental behavior.

Excess use of disposable to-go-cups constitutes a severe sustainability threat. Behavioral economics and economic psychology suggest various antidotes. In the present paper, we report two studies – a large-scale intervention field study and an experiment – that constitute independent, pre-registered, and open replication attempts of a recently-introduced intervention procedure: dynamic social norms. We tested whether a dynamic norm, along the lines of “more and more customers are switching from to-go-cups to a sustainable alternative. Be part of this movement and choose a reusable mug” – can help café customers to avoid disposable to-go-cups. Data from a fourteen-week intervention experiment with a total of 23,946 hot beverages sold – 18,019 in disposable cups and 5,927 in reusable mugs – suggest that a dynamic-norm intervention for sustainable consumption helps customers avoid disposable cups and increases their use of reusable alternatives by 17.3% (or 4.1 percentage points). A follow-up online experiment corroborates this pattern and shows advantageous effects of a dynamic norm relative to a no-norm control condition, a static norm, an injunctive norm, and a combination of static-and-injunctive norm. In light of inconsistent and, at times, failed or even reversed replication results for seminal social norms studies, the present pre-registered studies indicate that dynamic norms are an effective means to facilitate sustainable behavior. We discuss scientific and applied implications and avenues for future research.

The evidence that we face a catalogue of environmental crises caused by human activities, which pose a threat to planetary, social and personal continuity, is communicated in increasingly sophisticated ways. Despite increased knowledge, the populaces of wealthy nations appear to be outwardly ignoring such risks, continuing their consumption patterns unabated, and failing to mount a significant public response. Interventions aimed at encouraging more sustainable behaviours have largely drawn on individualistic psychology, and to date they have been largely unsuccessful. This paper is a call to deepen and widen our understanding of the psychosocial processes involved in not responding to the issues at stake. It does so by drawing on narrative approaches in the social sciences, psychoanalytic conceptualisations of defence mechanisms, and recent work addressing the social organisation of denial. The potential of these developments for informing social movements and political action is briefly considered in the light of an example, the Dark Mountain Project.

Kui riskikommunikatsiooni üks eesmärk on inimeste harjumuste muutmine, siis poolik kommunikatsioon võib kasu asemel hoopis kahju tuua. Järgnevalt vaatleme, kui hästi-halvasti toimis kommunikatsioon Ida-Virumaal asuva Kurtna maastikukaitseala kaitsekorralduskava koostamisel. Katre Liiv, keskkonnaagentuuri teabeosakonna juhataja, Tallinna ülikooli kommunikatsioonijuhtimise eriala magistrant Kurtna maastikukaitseala (MKA) Ida-Virumaal on kohalike elanike hulgas väga populaarne ajaveetmispaik tänu ligi 40 järvele ja marjaning seenerikkale metsale. Samal ajal on see ka kaevanduste, karjääride, turbaväljade jt ettevõtete tegevuse mõjusfääris. Ikka ja jälle võib meediast (enamasti kohalikust Põhjarannikust) kuulda või lugeda sealse looduse, tööstuse ja vabaajaveetjate omavahelisest sobimatusest, sellest, et üks või teine tegevus ohustab Natura võrgustikku kuuluvat väärtuslikku kaitseala. Ideaalis peaksid kaitstava ala huvigrupid kaitsekorralduskava koostamise käigus jõudma jagatud arusaamisele ala ohustavatest riskidest ning nende juhtimise viisidest. Ikka selleks, et hoida keskkonna seisund hea ning selle kaudu ka meie elukeskkond elamisväärne ja ohutu. Sellise kommunikatsiooni õnnestumiseks on oluline riskidest arusaamise toetamine huvigruppide hulgas, huvigruppide kaasamine, usaldus riskide hindamisega ja juhtimisega tegelevate ettevõtete ja asutuste vastu ning inimeste abistamine igapäevaste harjumuste muutmisel. Kokku kümme intervjuud nii era-ja avaliku sektori, teadlaskonna kui ka meedia esindajatega andsid ülevaate Kurtna maastikukaitseala kaitsekorralduskava koostamisega seonduvast kommunikatsioonist. Kohalik elanikkond on uuringusse kaasatud kahel moel -TLÜ ökoloogia instituudi 2012. aastal korraldatud Kurtna MKA külastajate küsitluse kaudu ning kuna küsitlusest selgus, et külastajateks on enamasti vene keelt kõnelevad kohalikud 20. eluaastates noored, palusin noorte mõttemallides orienteerumiseks kohaliku gümnaasiumi 10.-11. klasside õpilastel kirjutada essee teemal "Mina ja keskkond".

Online re-use groups provide a network for its members to share un-used, idle or non-preferred possessions without expecting any gain in return. Members give and take items without an obligation of reciprocity. This exchange structure is named as indirect or generalized exchange. The purpose of this study is to reveal motivations behind members of a re-use group based in Turkey, <atmaver>, in terms of self-expression and morality. <atmaver> is a Facebook group and has more than 21.000 members currently. Netnography and online survey are used to conduct the study in depth. Findings depicts that the re-use group acts like a place where members can avoid dominant market structures. Indirect reciprocity creates a distinction between re-use group and current living environment of members. Moreover, the distinction is reinforced with a shared common discourse of a fairytale. <atmaver> is a special community which should be protected due to its nature of turning disposed items into symbols of shared values.

International efforts for a more sustainable society have often resorted to formal agreements. But these commitments are more effective if people, communities and institutions integrate them as relevant behavioural standards, or social norms. In this paper we propose to analyse how social norms are internalized as personal norms and environmental identity, and then how able they are to predict recycling and organic foods purchase behaviour in two countries – Portugal and Brazil. The role of group identification is also analysed. Results show that behaviours are better predicted by personal norms and environmental identity than by more external social norms. Moreover, the influence of social norms on personal norms and environmental identity is in part moderated by group identification: Injunctive norms predict personal norms and environmental identity better when participants are more identified with the group, while descriptive norms predict them more directly.

This article considers the potential contribution of critical social psychology to the study of the relationship between humans and nature, particularly in terms of the role of human activities in ecological degradation. That human behaviour is having a profound impact on global climate and related phenomena has garnered broad scientific consensus and is communicated to the public in increasingly sophisticated ways. Psychology has been increasingly drawn upon by policy makers, pressure groups and related institutions in this context, in the hope of understanding, predicting and shaping behaviour and lifestyles towards more sustainable ends. In the past few decades, cognitive behaviourist models have dominated research and policy agendas concerned with identifying barriers to, and/or promoting ‘environmentally sustainable’ or ‘pro-environmental’ behaviour. Yet despite the emergence of critical work, to date, there has been very little work in this field explicitly under the banner of critical social psychology. In this article, a brief outline of some of the tenets of critical social psychology is followed by a consideration of how these principles have been taken up in existing cross-disciplinary critical approaches to the interrelated issues of environment, sustainability and human behaviour and the potential contribution of critical social psychology in these areas.

Esse plano de trabalho é associado ao projeto de pesquisa “A ecomotricidade no estado de Sergipe”, iniciado no ano de 2014. Ecomotricidade é compreendida como a intencionalidade do ser em suas inter-ações com a natureza, desde que essa inter-ação seja lúdica e ecológica. A relação é lúdica quando o que traz significação para a experiência é a alegria ou o prazer circunscritos à própria experiência. A relação é ecológica quando se satisfazem os preceitos (ecosomaestéticos-ambientalmente éticos-ecopolíticos) da justiça ambiental. Com isso, esse plano de trabalho compreende a construção, o desenvolvimento e a atualização de uma plataforma virtual para a divulgação contínua dos resultados da pesquisa, além da comunicação direta com interessados no tema. A construção da plataforma virtual envolve a criação de padrões linguísticos e de estratégias de apresentação para que os conteúdos/dados coletados na pesquisa sejam inseridos, acessados e compreendidos por toda sociedade. O desenvolvimento da plataforma digital é um meio de divulgação científica, mas também para o contínuo desenvolvimento da pesquisa, uma vez que permite o diálogo constante com novos atores.

This thesis constitutes a sustained engagement with a substantial and pressing practical problem: the problem of providing reasons for consumers in rich countries
to reduce their levels of personal consumption in order that the environmental harm caused by rising consumption levels may be mitigated. I orient this thesis around the advancement and defence of two claims: (i) that the welfare argument for reducing personal consumption receives justification from objective theories of welfare, and (ii) that the moral argument for reducing personal consumption receives justification from virtue ethics. The welfare argument for reducing personal consumption is that a
significant subset of inhabitants of rich nations could improve their welfare by reducing their consumption of material goods and resources. The moral argument for
reducing personal consumption is that rich consumers are under an obligation to reduce their consumption of material goods and resources even though their personal reduction is itself inconsequential to alleviating the harm that the aggregate of such consumption causes.

In Chapter 1 I advance and defend an analysis of the concept of consumption, and provide an account of what it is for an individual to reduce their personal consumption. In Chapter 2 I defend a particular class of theories of welfare, namely,
objective theories. I propose a pluralist account of the content of welfare – substantive goods such as sociability, knowledge and aesthetic experience – and articulate a procedural account of how that content may be specified. I also advance
a practical judgement-based account of how welfare comparisons between different lives can be made. In Chapter 3 I argue that the claim made by environmental and social campaigners that rising levels of consumption have compromised welfare within rich countries in the past 60 years receives justification from the objective theories of welfare defended in the previous chapter. This argument is developed by distinguishing three detailed expressions of the overconsumption claim within the popular and scholarly literature, and arguing that each expression is consistent with
and illuminated by practical judgements informed and justified by objective theories of welfare.

In chapters 4 and 5 I defend the second of my two central theses: that the moral argument for reducing personal consumption receives justification from virtue ethics. In Chapter 4 I explicate the problem of justifying a moral obligation to refrain from performing actions which are inconsequential in themselves but which aggregate to cause considerable harm, before considering and rejecting two attempts to justify an obligation to refrain from performing such actions made from within consequentialist ethics. In Chapter 5 I propose and defend a virtue ethics-based argument for such a moral obligation. I ground this obligation in the claim that failing to reduce personal consumption constitutes remaining a member of a harming group.

Currently water chain services in the Netherlands are charged through separate bills from different institutions; these include levies and taxes for drinking water production and distribution, sewage and waste water treatment and groundwater and surface water management. The largest share of these charges is not depended on the quantified use of these services but is rather on-charged through fixed flat rates. Such a financial structure of water utility household revenues has its shortcomings. An integration of separate water bills to one water cycle tariff can provide gains in transparency, simplicity, fairness, monetary incentives for sustainable consumption, the attunement with the European Water Framework directive and organizational efficiency. Main drawbacks are an expected burden displacement, concerns for public health and organizational obstacles that need to be overcome.

We are offering an outstanding opportunity for an expert in Behaviour Change to grow and develop research in the unique context of an N8 Food consortium. Leading the 'Improved Nutrition and Consumer Behaviours' theme at Leeds, you will be encouraged and supported to build fresh research collaborations which can capitalise on the innovative application of behaviour change work. As a strategic appointment at either Associate Professor or Chair in the area of Behaviour Change, you will be based in the School of Psychology, where we are ready to consolidate and grow behaviour change expertise. The role is part of the £16 million; five-year Agri-Food Resilience Programme funded by the N8 and HEFCE, the role offers unrivalled opportunities for cross-disciplinary relationships, spanning academia and industry across the N8 nationally and internationally. Many of these relationships are nascent, and ripe for creative growth. Potential directions for cross-disciplinary collaborations include research to change behaviour at the farm, supply chain or consumer level to increase resilience and improve nutrition with benefits for public health, reducing environmental impacts and increasing sustainability. A key partnership for the appointed candidate will be with the N8 theme lead, Professor Jason Halford at the University of Liverpool. You will have an international reputation in behaviour change, with clear enthusiasm and capacity for large, multidisciplinary grant applications and for publications of international standard with potential for impact. Our behaviour change team in the School of Psychology offer support, capacity and a creative environment to keep research forward-thinking, relevant and inclusive. Demonstrating an interest and ability to deliver engaging, research-led teaching to educate and inspire students is also essential. We encourage applications from people who are seeking a supportive, ambitious research environment with exciting opportunities for the application of behaviour change within and across disciplines. You will have secured significant research income, and published extensively with a significant number of 3* and 4* REF equivalent outputs, and have a track record of excellence in teaching and leadership. The University of Leeds is committed to providing equal opportunities for all. The University is a charter member of Athena SWAN and holds the Bronze award. We will be happy to consider job share applications and are committed to flexible working for all our employees.

The idea that the lived environment, physical and social, interacts with individual skills to produce adaptive (or maladaptive) behavior is not new. However a comprehensive account of how the environment affects cognitive changes with ageing and in turn the ageing individual may change the environment is still lacking. Technology offers now new avenues to study the individual-environment interaction and potential to induce adaptive changes supporting independent living in older adults.

Resumen Este estudio explora la percepción de habitantes de la ciudad de Bogotá (Colombia) sobre el estado actual del medio ambiente a nivel local, nacional y global, y la prospectiva de cómo estará en el futuro, con el propósito de servir de guía para el desarrollo de los componentes educativos de educación ambiental a la ciudadanía. Igualmente, indaga por la atribución de la responsabilidad del manejo del medio ambiente a futuro. Participaron un total de 118 personas, hombres y mujeres mayores de 18 años, con distintos niveles de formación escolar. El estudio utiliza la Escala de Futuro Ambiental de Gifford et al. (2009) a la que se le introducen dos ítems de relevancia para la evaluación del medio ambiente en Colombia, y la Escala de Atribución de Responsabilidad Ambiental de Barros, Pinheiro y Gunther (2010). Los resultados muestran un pesimismo moderado a nivel nacional, y alto para el caso internacional y local. En cuanto a la atribución de responsabilidad, se identifica un locus de control externo en las causas del deterioro ambiental, siendo los principales agentes mencionados, otras personas y el gobierno nacional. Se discuten los hallazgos en términos de su comparación con estudios de las mismas temáticas en otros lugares del mundo, y sus implicaciones para la promoción del comportamiento proambiental y la atribución de responsabilidad de los bogotanos, así como sobre la contextualización de los medios de comunicación en la valoración del estado del ambiente. Palabras Clave: actitudes ambientales, atribuciones de responsabilidad, escala de futuro ambiental. Abstract This study explores the perception of citizens of the city of Bogota (Colombia) on the current state of the environment at local, national and global level, and the prospect of what it will be in the future, in order to provide guidance for the development of environmental components of citizenship education. It also investigates the allocation of responsibility for environmental management in the future. Participants were 118 people, men and women aged over 18 years with different levels of schooling. The instruments used were the Environmental Future Scale by Gifford et al. (2009) to which two items relevant to the assessment of the environment in Colombia were incorporated, and the Allocation Scale for Environmental Responsibility by Barros, Pinheiro and Gunther (2010). Results showed moderate pessimism for the national level, and high for the international and local case. Regarding the allocation of responsibility, an external locus of control was identified in terms of the causes of environmental degradation, where the main actors mentioned were other people and the national government. Findings are discussed in terms of a comparison with similar studies elsewhere in the world and of its implications for promoting pro-environmental behavior and the attribution of responsibility on the part of the citizens of Bogota, as well as the effect of the media assessing the state of the environment. 1 Los autores expresan sus agradecimientos a los revisores del artículo, sus comentarios fueron fundamentales para el ajuste y revisión de la versión final del artículo.