Is environmental behavior related to economic risk preferences? An exploratory case by case analysis

Do risk preferences play a role when deciding whether to act pro-environmentally? Looking at 28 different behaviors case by case – including recycling, waste reduction, energy and water conservation, consumer behavior, and environmental policy support – our data suggest no relation between most of the behaviors and economic risk preferences. However, economic risk preferences appear to have some relevance for travel mode choice and for specific consumer preferences (eco-friendly detergents, organic food, and single-use plastics), perhaps because people are better able to appreciate aspects of these behaviors related to risk (e.g., possibility of traffic accidents, health risks)

Sex differences in sleep and influence of the menstrual cycle on women’s sleep in junior endurance athletes

Previous research shows that female athletes sleep better according to objective parameters but report worse subjective sleep quality than male athletes. However, existing sleep studies did not investigate variations in sleep and sleep stages over longer periods and have, so far, not elucidated the role of the menstrual cycle in female athletes’ sleep. To address these methodological shortcomings, we investigated sex differences in sleep and sleep stages over 61 continuous days in 37 men and 19 women and examined the role of the menstrual cycle and its phases in 15 women. Sleep was measured by a non-contact radar, and menstrual bleeding was self-reported. Associations were investigated with multilevel modeling. Overall, women tended to report poorer subjective sleep quality (p = .057), but objective measurements showed that women obtained longer sleep duration (p < .001), more light (p = .013) and rapid eye movement sleep (REM; hours (h): p < .001, %: p = .007), shorter REM latency (p < .001), and higher sleep efficiency (p = .003) than men. R2 values showed that sleep duration, REM and REM latency were especially affected by sex. Among women, we found longer time in bed (p = .027) and deep sleep (h: p = .036), and shorter light sleep (%: p = .021) during menstrual bleeding vs. non-bleeding days; less light sleep (h: p = .040), deep sleep (%: p = .013) and shorter REM latency (p = .011) during the menstrual than pre-menstrual phase; and lower sleep efficiency (p = .042) and more deep sleep (%: p = .026) during the follicular than luteal phase. These findings indicate that the menstrual cycle may impact the need for physiological recovery, as evidenced by the sleep stage variations. Altogether, the observed sex differences in subjective and objective sleep parameters may be related to the female athletes’ menstrual cycle. The paper provides unique data of sex differences in sleep stages and novel insights into the role of the menstrual cycle in sleep among female athletes.publishedVersio

Familie aus der Perspektive von Kindern zwischen 9 und 14 Jahren

"Dieser Beitrag referiert die Ergebnisse einer mehrjährigen repräsentativen Befragung von Kindern zwischen 9 und 14 Jahren. Die wichtigsten Einflussfaktoren auf das kindliche Wohlbefinden in der Familie sind familiäre Wärme, keine zu starke Kontrolle durch die Mutter, hohe Kommunikationsqualität und geringe Dominanz der Eltern." (Autorenreferat)"This text reports the results of a representative perennial survey of 9 to 14 year olds. The most important influences on the child's well-being in their families are warmth, no over-control through the mother, high quality communication and low dominance of the parents." (author's abstract

The role of family functioning and self-esteem in the quality of life of adolescents referred for psychiatric services: a 3-year follow-up.

PurposeTo investigate, in adolescents referred for psychiatric services, the associations of initial self-esteem and family functioning with level and change of quality of life (QoL) over a 3-year period, over and above the effect of their emotional problems.MethodsOf 1648 eligible 13-18&nbsp;years old patients attending the child and adolescent psychiatric clinic (CAP) at least once, 717 (54.8% females) were enrolled at baseline (a response rate of 43.5%). Self- and parent reports on the McMaster Family Assessment Device were obtained. Adolescents reported self-esteem on the Rosenberg Scale, and emotional problems on the Symptom Check List-5. Adolescents completed the Inventory of Life Quality in Children and Adolescents (ILC). After 3&nbsp;years, 570 adolescents again completed the ILC, and for 418 adolescents parent information was available. The longitudinal analysis sample of 418 adolescents was representative of the baseline sample for age, gender, emotional problems, and QoL. We used modified growth-model analysis, adjusted for SES, age, gender and time of contact with CAP, where residual variances for ILC at baseline and follow-up were fixed to 0.ResultsA poorer family functioning at baseline, reported by parents, was significantly associated with worsening QoL during the 3&nbsp;years follow-up period (p = 0.001).ConclusionsParents have important knowledge about their families that may reflect long-term influences on QoL development in adolescent psychiatric patients. Health care providers and policy makers should optimize treatment outcomes by addressing family functioning in adolescents with emotional problems

Psychological Predictors of Energy Saving Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Approach

Understanding how psychological processes drive human energy choices is an urgent, and yet relatively under-investigated, need for contemporary society. A knowledge gap still persists on the links between psychological factors identified in earlier studies and people’s behaviors in the energy domain. This research applies a meta-analytical procedure to assess the strength of the associations between five different classes of individual variables (i.e.,: attitudes, intentions, values, awareness, and emotions) and energy-saving behavioral intentions and behaviors (self-reported and actual). Based on a systematic review of studies published between 2007 and 2017, we estimate the average effect size of predictor-criterion relations, and we assess relevant moderators and publication bias, drawing on data obtained from 102 independent samples reported in 67 published studies (N = 59.948). Results from a series of five single meta-analyses reveal a pattern of significant positive associations between the selected psychological determinants and energy-saving indicators: associations between individual-level predictors and energy-saving outcomes are positive and moderate in size, ranging from large effects for emotions to small-moderate effects for pro-environmental values. Interestingly, moderation analysis reveals, among other things, that attitude-behavior links are not statistically significant when actual behavior is considered as an outcome. Implications for policy interventions are discussed

Addressing climate change with behavioral science: a global intervention tournament in 63 countries

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions’ effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior—several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people’s initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors

Climart - Visual Art as a Tool to Trigger Behavioural Change in the Public - Exploring the Psychological Mechanisms Behind, 2018

The Climart Project addressed an important research gap in the domain of communication of climate change, namely which effects do climate change related art projects have on their audience, what are the psychological mechanisms behind these effects and how can climate art be an alternative communication approach to activate the general public to engage in and support climate change mitigation measures. Numerous climate art projects have been implemented around the world but very little is known about if they are effective, to which kind of audience they reach out to and what kind of processes they trigger in their audience. The project built on results from a pre-project that suggested that visual climate art can trigger moments of reflection, has the potential to reach to groups of the society that usually are less open to climate change communications, but needed to be carefully designed to avoid triggering responsibility denial. In doing the analyses, the project drew on input from psychology, arts, communication and environmental science. The data consists of three datasets from two studies conducted in the Climart Project. Study one was conducted in November/December 2015 at the ARTCOP event which was a climate art festival in parallel to the climate sumit in Paris. A paper-pencil survey was carried out among 37 of the audience of these artworks with a paper-pencil survey. The dataset from this study comes in two parts: 1) A dataset from the individual audience responses, and 2) A dataset with 1-2 "expert ratings" of characteristics of the artwork itself, conducted by the researchers. The second dataset is an audience survey conducted at the Trondheim and London shows with the artwork "pollution pods" created by the commissioned project artist Michael Pinsky. The data was conducted with the audience and a shorter with a comparable control group not exposed to the artwork