Lecture on Pro-Environmental Behavior (PEB)

Jul 15, 2024

Lecture on Pro-Environmental Behavior (PEB)

Introduction

  • Focus on pro-environmental behavior (PEB)
  • Relationship between pro-environmental attitudes (environmental concern) and behavior
  • Using psychology to promote sustainability and PEB

Terminology

  • Pro-environmental behavior (PEB): Environmentally friendly actions minimizing negative environmental impacts
    • Examples: recycling, turning off lights, using fuel-efficient vehicles, green consumer behavior, political advocacy
  • Also known as: "ecologically responsible behavior", "environmentally responsible behavior", "sustainability behavior", "green behavior", "conservation behavior"
  • Depreciative behavior: Environmentally unfriendly actions that degrade or diminish natural resources
    • Examples: littering, carving initials in trees, going off-trail in sensitive areas, driving gas-guzzling SUVs, buying and disposing of lots of stuff

Role of Psychology

  • Psychologists measure pro-environmental actions, examine sources, correlates, and barriers, and develop/test methods for increasing PEB
  • Environmentally related human behaviors cause issues like climate change, pollution, deforestation, and resource depletion
  • Anthropocene: Geological era influenced predominantly by human activity
    • "Anthropocentric climate change": Human-caused climate change
    • Anthropocene Working Group identifies 1950s as the start

Environmental Attitudes vs. Pro-Environmental Behavior

  • Growth in environmental concern (EC) but a weak relationship with PEB
  • Pearson r for EC and PEB often ranges from 0.17 to 0.19 (small correlation)
  • Concern-behavior gap: Discrepancy between people’s environmental concern and their actions
    • Example: Bickman (1972) study on littering and behavioral inconsistency

Psychological Reasons for the Concern-Behavior Gap

Present Bias

  • Cognitive bias focusing on immediate benefits of depreciative behavior and immediate costs of PEB
  • Prioritize immediate rewards over future consequences
  • Solutions: Adopt a future-oriented mindset, think about the long-term impact on future generations, and feel better about taking action

Distrust of Others

  • Fairness perception: Reluctance to act sustainably if others are not
  • Environmental social trap: Many people acting selfishly exacerbate problems
  • Solutions: Refocus on personal responsibility, acknowledge collective impact, and discourage justifying depreciative behavior based on others' actions

Low Perceived Control and Efficacy

  • Belief that individual actions won’t significantly affect large-scale environmental problems
  • Pseudoinefficacy: Misconception that individual actions don’t matter
  • Solutions: Understand aggregate impact of individual actions, empower oneself with knowledge, and view sustainable actions as part of a broader movement

Empowerment Strategies

  • Recognize the contribution of individual actions to larger environmental goals
  • Engage in personal and political actions for sustainability
  • Address cognitive dissonance: Align concerns with actions by reducing depreciative behaviors and increasing PEB

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