Applying Social Psychology to the envr

resource dilemmas

- situations in which individuals must choose between self-interest and the interest of the community or environment.

social design

- designing buildings in a way that benefits the people who live or work in the building, or visit it, by systematically incorporating their needs and ideas into the design.

defensible space

- the principle that crime can be prevented or displaced by modifying the physical environment to reduce the opportunity that individuals have to commit crime.

social dilemmas

- instances when the rewards to the individual for non-cooperation are greater than the rewards for cooperation no matter what others do; however if most individuals involved fail to cooperate, then everyone receives lower rewards.

three main forms of social dilemmas

(1) public goods problems.
(2) social traps.
(3) resource (or common) dilemmas.

public goods traps

- involves dilemmas about whether to contribute to a project that would benefit everyone when such a contribution is voluntary.
- may not cooperate because they can reap the reward without involvement, or because involvement is risky due to potential of failure.

social traps

- involves short-term pleasure or gain that over time leads to pain or loss.
- ex. smoking, over-eating, etc.
- must choose between an immediate reward in the long term negative outcome vs. short-term deprivation and long-term positive outcome.

dilemma of social traps

(1) the long-term outcome usually is not certain.
(2) individuals tend to discount the negative outcomes.

freedom in the commons

- Garret Hardins analogy.
- ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons.

invisible hand

- a phrase coined by Adam Smith to describe the process that turns self-directed gain into social and economic benefits for all.

tragedy of the commons

- situation in which people acting individually and in their own interest use up commonly available but limited resources, creating disaster for the entire community.

resource exhaustion

- when resources are generate more slowly than people can harvest them.
- must choose to get ahead at the expense of others or choose to preserve the commons.

dragons of inaction

- outlines tendencies to not take action.
- limited cognition, certain ideologies, social norms and comparison, discredence, perceived risks, sunk costs, and limited behaviour.

microworlds

- simulated learning environments that provide participants opportunities to think about problems for which there are not obvious solutions or situations.

influence of cooperation

(1) the nature of the resource itself.
(2) the social conditions or rules surrounding the harvesting.
(3) the characteristics of the harvesters themselves.
- social factors, indirect or direct, are an important aspect of decision making.

grounded theory

-an inductive approach to the study of social life that attempts to generate a theory from the constant comparing of unfolding observations.
- involves "think-aloud" procedures.

promoting prosocial behaviour

(1) choose a specific behaviour to be changed that will improve the quality of the environment.
(2) examine the primary factors underlying this behaviour.
(3) design and apply an intervention to change the behaviour so as to reduce is environmental impact.
(4) rigorously evaluate the effects of the intervention on the behaviour and also on the quality of environmental and human life.

factors underlying prosocial behaviour

- combinations of values, awareness of the problem, environmental attitudes, a sense of control, moral and social norms, guilt, and attributions of about the self and others.

antecedent strategies

- directed at factors that precede the problem behaviour.
- can involve providing people with pro-environment information, based on what has been called the information deficit model, which assumes that more information will lead to better behaviour.
- these strategies rely on priming ability.
- empowering messages often produce stronger intentions to engage in positive behaviours and sacrifice messages.

consequence strategies

- directed at the consequences that follow the problem behaviour.

injunctive norms

- norms specifying what ought to be done; what is approved or disapproved behaviour in a given context.

descriptive norms

- people's perceptions of how most people behave in a given context.

recycling study

- attitudes, perceived control, self identity, and norms predicted the intention to recycle, and these intentions in turn predicted behaviour.
- one way to increase recycling behaviour is to reduce the perceived barriers to recycling, such as inconvenience, discuss, and mistrust, well increasing the perceived benefits of recycling.
- feedback (personal or group) can effectively promote recycling rather than just providing information.

driving less study

- participants were instructed to report the number of miles avoided driving.
- received feedback depending on the condition:
(a) pollution avoided condition
(b) financial gain condition both
(c) pollution avoided and finance looking condition
(d) no feedback condition
(e) no web report control condition
- participants who reported instances of avoided driving used their cars less than the no web control group (recording was effective).
- participants in the combined feedback condition reported less driving than those and all other conditions.

reducing household energy usage study

- combination of three intervention strategies:
(a) a list of energy saving measures with potential savings tailor to each household
(b) a goal setting request to reduce energy consumption by 5% over five months
(c) customized feedback about changes in energy use in the amount of money saved
- 5% goal was achieved

environmental audits

- assess the impact of household or business activities on the environment.
- auditor would point out problems, suggest repairs, offers an attractive grant or loan for major refit, and suggest reputable contractors for doing the needed work.
- 15% of households would follow the advice but was increased to 60% when auditors were trained in effective communication (i.e. vivid examples, focussing on loss rather than gain, involve residents in the process, invoke cognitive dissonance).