Regulation in the Behavioral Era

Administrative agencies have long proceeded on the assumption that individuals respond to regulations in ways that are consistent with traditional rational actor theory, but that is beginning to change. Agencies are now relying on behavioral economics to develop regulations that account for responses that depart from common sense and common wisdom, reflecting predictable cognitive anomalies. Furthermore, political officials have now called for behavioral economics to play an explicit role in White House review of agency regulations. This is a significant development for the regulatory process, yet our understanding of how behavioral insights should alter regulatory analysis is incomplete. To account for behavioral anomalies, regulators will need to draw on behavioral and social science insights beyond behavioral economics, and they will need an analytic framework to ensure that regulatory decisions reflect a comprehensive examination of the numerous, seemingly haphazard behavioral insights. Although behavioral research has demonstrated the limits of rational action, it does not provide a framework for considering extra-rational action. Nor have legal scholars developed such a framework, despite excellent theoretical work in the area. In this Article, we take an initial step. We provide a framework to facilitate agency consideration of extra-rational action and extend that framework to include a lesson from behavioral research that academics have noted but not adequately explored: that individuals are concerned with social outcomes (e.g., social status or inclusion) as well as monetary outcomes (e.g., wealth) and that they seek to maximize utility in both rational and extra-rational ways. After sketching our framework, we offer concrete applications in the energy use context. Our framework does not resolve all issues that may arise in the behavioral era, but it provides a means to move forward

The environmental cost of misinformation: why the recommendation to use elevated temperatures for handwashing is problematic

Abstract Multiple government and health organizations recommend the use of warm or hot water in publications designed to educate the public on best practices for washing one's hands. This is despite research suggesting that the use of an elevated water temperature does not improve handwashing efficacy, but can cause hand irritation. There is reason to believe that the perception that warm or hot water is more effective at cleaning one's hands is pervasive, and may be one factor that is driving up unnecessary energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. We examine handwashing practices and beliefs about water temperature using a survey of 510 adults in the US. The survey included measures of handwashing frequency, duration, the proportion of time an elevated temperature was used and beliefs about water temperature and handwashing efficacy. We also estimate the energy consumed and resultant carbon dioxide equivalent emissions (CO2eq) in the US due to the use of elevated temperatures during handwashing. Participants used an elevated temperature 64% of the time, causing 6.3 million metric tons (MMt) of CO2eq, which is 0.1% of total annual emissions and 0.3% of commercial and residential sector emissions. Roughly 69% of the sample believed that elevated temperatures improve handwashing efficacy. Updating these beliefs could prevent 1 MMt of CO2eq annually, exceeding the total emissions from many industrial sources in the US including the lead and zinc industries. In addition to causing skin irritation, the recommendation to use an elevated temperature during handwashing contributes to another major threat to public health -climate change. Health and consumer protection organizations should consider advocating for the use of a 'comfortable' temperature rather than warm or hot water

The Implications of Group Norms for Adaptation in Collectively Managed Agricultural Systems: Evidence From Sri Lankan Paddy Farmers

A growing literature seeks to explore the factors shaping adaptation to climate change. In collectively managed common pool resource systems, there is often a tension between behavior that benefits the individual and actions that benefit a larger group. Resource users in sustainable systems must therefore work together to ensure outcomes that are beneficial to the group as a whole. However, in the face of changing social, political, and environmental conditions, community norms may change, leading to the emerging of new behavioral patterns. Understanding when and why people decide to act in ways that benefit the group as a whole can help policy makers better target policies or change incentives to promote desired outcomes. This research seeks to build on research in common pool resource management and multilevel selection to understand how and why collective pressures shape individual adaptation behavior. Using qualitative data from in-depth interviews of farmers in Sri Lanka, this study confirms that collective management practices in Sri Lankan irrigation systems significantly influence farmer’s potential adaption behaviors. Based on farmer’s explanations of their own behavior, we hypothesize that farmer’s belief in the ecological necessity of cooperation and explicit government support for collective action are important drivers of collective action. Given the influence of community rules and norms, we conclude that efforts at adaptation are more likely to be successful if they target farmer organizations and communities as a whole rather than individual farmers

A Study of Perceived Nature, Shade and Trees and Self-Reported Physical Activity in Denver

Introduction Integrating physical activity (PA) into daily routines has become a national priority following the American College of Sports Medicine/Centers for Disease Control&rsquo;s statement on PA and health [1] and the U.S. Surgeon General&rsquo;s Report on Physical Activity and Health [2]. [...]studies suggest the quality of landscape is a facet through which the surrounding environment may affect health behavior [23,24]. According to Leslie (2010), a majority of studies that show significant relationships between greenness and PA are those that collect perceived greenness measures (e.g., perception of trees, shade, and the presence of nature). Some studies also show that the level of the walkability of the neighborhood may affect its residences&rsquo; perception of the surrounding areas [52]. [...]the length of residency in the neighborhood is important because it can influence people&rsquo;s relationships to the neighborhood environment and related perceptions of this place [53,54].</p

Identity and Guilt as Mediators of Pro-environmental Spillover

Policymakers are interested in programs that increase targeted pro-environmental behavior (PEB) and spill over to increase non-targeted PEBs. Theoretically, guilt should lead to negative spillover and identity to positive spillover, though this has rarely been tested empirically. Additionally, little is known about how reminders of past PEB behavior might also lead to downstream spillover effects. Across two studies, participants (Study 1: 377 MTurk workers; Study 2: 172 undergraduates) were randomly assigned to write about a prior PEB, an anti-environmental behavior, or to a control condition. Subsequently, respondents were given an opportunity to perform a PEB2 and completed measures of PEB3 intentions. Results showed some evidence of positive (through increasing identity) and negative (through decreasing guilt) indirect spillover pathways from prior PEB reminders to PEB2 performance and PEB3 curtailment intentions (but not efficiency upgrade intentions). However, there were no overall spillover effects from PEB reminders to PEB2 performance or PEB3 intentions, as the positive and negative indirect effects canceled each other out. Results also showed positive spillover from PEB2 performance to PEB3 curtailment intentions through increasing environmental guilt. The strength of the spillover effects depended on the comparison group for the experimental manipulation, whether environmental guilt or global guilt was measured, and the type of PEB. The results suggest that environmental communications that remind people of their prior PEB may not meaningfully spill over to further PEB performance or intentions. &nbsp;</p

Extreme Weather and Marriage among Girls and Women in Bangladesh

Climate change interacts with social, economic, and political forces in ways that can shape demographic behavior. Yet, the link between environmental stress and marriage has received limited attention. Using survey data from 615 Bangladeshi households, we examine the relationship between extreme weather in the form of heat waves and dry spells, and the risk of marriage over the period from 1989 to 2013. We find that girls and women are at an increased risk of marrying in the year of or following heat waves. The link is strongest for women aged 18 to 23, and weakest for those 11 to 14. We also explore the hypothesis that extreme weather leads families to accept less desirable marriage proposals for daughters. We find that those who wed during periods of extreme heat married into poorer households and to husbands with less education. Similarly, those who married during abnormally dry periods married men man with less education and who were more supportive of intimate partner violence. Together these results suggest that, when Bangladeshi families face environmental shocks, they cope by hastening the marriage of daughters or accepting less desirable marriage proposals. Such practices are likely to have long-term impacts on the health and well-being of women and children, and underscore the unique vulnerabilities faced by women as climate change intensifies. </div

Editorial: Methodological, Theoretical and Applied Advances in Behavioral Spillover.

Psychology and allied disciplines (e.g., behavioral economics, marketing, and management) have established a range of techniques for understanding and changing behavior. Historically, the interventions derived from these techniques have largely focused on individual behaviors, rarely considering dynamic relationships between behaviors (i.e., whether the performance of a target behavior influences non-target1 behaviors). And yet work on response generalization (e.g., Ludwig, 2002), rebound effects (e.g., Greening et al., 2000), and moral licensing (e.g., Blanken et al., 2015) (to name but a few), has all variously described how changes in one behavior can have &ldquo;knock-on&rdquo; consequences for other actions.</p

Childhood trauma and other formative life experiences predict environmental engagement

Abstract Environmental problems continue to intensify. Yet, despite scientific consensus on threats such as climate change, broadscale public engagement with the issue is elusive. In this paper, we focus on childhood formative experiences and the extent to which they are correlated with environmental engagement. We consider two forms of environmental engagement: civic engagement, measured in hours per month devoted to an environmental protection cause, and private-sphere green behavior. Past studies about significant life experiences have shown that formative experiences, especially in childhood, correlate with environmentally sensitive attitudes and vocations in later life. However, we know less about the formative life events experienced by contemporary environmentally engaged persons. Looking at a nationally representative sample of American adults (n = 449), we find that childhood trauma predicts both civic engagement and green behavior. We also find that childhood experiences in nature and childhood travel experiences predict green behavior but not civic engagement