Can I Make a Difference? The Role of General and Domain-specific Self-efficacy in Sustainable Consumption Decisions

We report a study which explored sustainable development self-efficacy (SDSE) beliefs, that is, domain-specific self-efficacy beliefs concerning one’s ability to foster sustainable development. We propose that the following aspects be considered when studying SDSE: Three dimensions of sustainable development (environmental preservation, social fairness, economic welfare) and direct as well as indirect behaviors influencing sustainable development. In an online survey among Norwegian consumers (N = 402), we measured SDSE, general selfefficacy (GSE; Schwarzer, 1993), and two indicators of sustainable consumption. A factor analysis yielded four separable facets of SDSE: The perceived ability (i) to encourage others to act sustainably, (ii) to promote environmental preservation by one’s own actions and consumption decisions, (iii) to promote social fairness and economic welfare through one’s consumption, and (iv) to promote social fairness and economic welfare through one’s actions in general. Self-efficacy concerning encouraging others turned out to be the strongest predictor of sustainable consumption behavior, stronger than self-efficacy concerning directly preserving the environment. The latter was a significant predictor only for choices of ecological produce. GSE did not contribute to predicting sustainable consumption. We discuss the structure of the SDSE concept, its role in shaping sustainable consumption decisions, and how it might be extended in future studies

Can I Make a Difference? The Role of General and Domain-specific Self-efficacy in Sustainable Consumption Decisions

We report a study which explored sustainable development self-efficacy (SDSE) beliefs, that is, domain-specific self-efficacy beliefs concerning one’s ability to foster sustainable development. We propose that the following aspects be considered when studying SDSE: Three dimensions of sustainable development (environmental preservation, social fairness, economic welfare) and direct as well as indirect behaviors influencing sustainable development. In an online survey among Norwegian consumers (N = 402), we measured SDSE, general selfefficacy (GSE; Schwarzer, 1993), and two indicators of sustainable consumption. A factor analysis yielded four separable facets of SDSE: The perceived ability (i) to encourage others to act sustainably, (ii) to promote environmental preservation by one’s own actions and consumption decisions, (iii) to promote social fairness and economic welfare through one’s consumption, and (iv) to promote social fairness and economic welfare through one’s actions in general. Self-efficacy concerning encouraging others turned out to be the strongest predictor of sustainable consumption behavior, stronger than self-efficacy concerning directly preserving the environment. The latter was a significant predictor only for choices of ecological produce. GSE did not contribute to predicting sustainable consumption. We discuss the structure of the SDSE concept, its role in shaping sustainable consumption decisions, and how it might be extended in future studies.publishedVersio

The emotional engagement of climate experts is related to their climate change perceptions and coping strategies

ß2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Dette er den aksepterte versjonen av en artikkel publisert i Journal of Risk Research. Du finner den publiserte artikkelen her: https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2020.1779785. // This is the postprint version of the article published in Journal of Risk Research. You will find the published article here: https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2020.1779785The study aimed to reveal the role of emotions in Lithuanian climate experts’ perceptions of climate change (i.e., their beliefs about the causes and risk perceptions of climate change) and fill the gap in scientific knowledge about the coping strategies that climate experts tend to employ in order to deal with climate-change-related emotions. To investigate climate experts’ emotional reactions to climate change, we applied a four-factor model comprising morality-based other- and self-related as well as consequence-based retrospective and prospective emotions. The results indicated that the climate experts showed great variation in their emotional reactions; two clusters of experts emerged – those who were emotionally engaged and those who were disengaged with regard to climate change. Emotionally engaged experts were more likely than their disengaged counterparts to emphasize anthropogenic climate change, to believe that the consequences of climate change would appear both locally and globally, and to consider the consequences to be uncontrollable, dreadful, and morally unacceptable. Emotionally engaged and disengaged climate experts agreed on the extent to which they evaluated climate change as societally disputed. Additionally, experts working in the government were more emotionally engaged with climate change issues than academics. Finally, in order to deal with climate-change-related emotions, emotionally engaged experts were more likely to invoke problem- and emotion-focused coping strategies, whereas the two groups of experts did not differ in their tendencies to avoid climate change issues.acceptedVersio

Attentional focus and anticipated emotions in the face of future environmental risks: Should I take the train or drive my car?

This study presents an experiment investigating the effects of attentional focus and valence of experience on anticipated emotions and on intentions to drive by car or to use public transportation. Car driving is associated with being detrimental for the environment, whereas using public transportation is assumed to be environmentally beneficial. We regard environmentally friendly behaviour as an instantiation of a problem-focused coping strategy that is triggered by anticipated threat from an environmental stressor and aims at reducing the environmental problem. A discrepancy, however, may exist between the immediate experience of driving a car or using public transport, and the long-term experience of the consequences, that is, a polluted versus a healthy environment. Employing multimedia scenarios, we manipulated participants’ attention to focus either on behaviour (car or public transport) or on the environmental consequences, and induced either a positively or a negatively valenced experience. We measured anticipated emotions and intentions to use the car or public transport, and repeated the measurements two weeks later. Most important, a focus on consequences turns out to have stronger effects on emotions than a focus on behaviour. Also, intentions to use a car or public transport change when focusing on the future consequences, but not when focusing on the positive or negative circumstances accompanying the behaviours. A mediation analysis shows that while focusing on the consequences influences both anticipated emotions and behavioural intentions, the effect of focus on behavioural intentions is not mediated by anticipated emotions. Results suggest that emphasizing the long-term consequences of one’s behaviour is a better means of fostering pro-environmental behaviour than emphasizing the experience of the behaviours per se.acceptedVersio

Using Card Sorting to Explore the Mental Representation of Energy Transition Pathways Among Laypeople

Meeting international emission targets will require major changes in the energy system. This paper addresses the public perception of different pathways to energy transition, and their mental representation in particular. A study is reported that employed card sorting to explore how laypeople categorize possible pathway components with respect to their perceived similarity (Norwegian sample, n = 61; German sample, n = 71). Data sets that were obtained by this method were subjected to multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis. Results for both samples consistently indicate that people differentiate components located at the individual level (e.g., vegetarian food, avoid long flights, walking and cycling), components located at the societal level (e.g., taxes, regulations, urban planning), and components concerned with technological solutions (e.g., hydropower, wind farms, solar panels). These results give reason to assume that laypeople from Norway and Germany share a multifaceted understanding of energy transition, yet some differences between samples were present with regard to the substructure of the individual level category. Future research can build on the present results to explore the subjective meanings of these structures, possibly identifying barriers to public engagement with energy transition

Laypeople’s Affective Images of Energy Transition Pathways

This paper explores the public perception of energy transition pathways, that is, individual behaviors, political strategies, and technologies that aim to foster a shift toward a low-carbon and sustainable society. We employed affective image analysis, a structured method based on free associations to explore positive and negative connotations and affective meanings. Affective image analysis allows to tap into affective meanings and to compare these meanings across individuals, groups, and cultures. Data were collected among university students in Norway (n = 106) and Germany (n = 125). A total of 25 energy transition pathway components were presented to the participants who generated one free association to each component by indicating the first that came to mind when thinking of the component. Participants evaluated their associations by indicating whether they considered each association to be positive, negative, or neutral. These associations were coded by two research assistants, which resulted in 2650 coded responses in the Norwegian sample and 2846 coded responses in the German sample. Results for the two samples are remarkably similar. The most frequent type of association is a general evaluation of the component, for example concerning its valence or its importance. The second most frequent types of association are requirements needed to implement the component (e.g., national policies) and consequences of the component (e.g., personal or environmental consequences). Individual behaviors (e.g., walking) elicited thoughts about consequences and requirements, but also about the prevalence of such behaviors. Associations in response to technologies (e.g., carbon capture and storage) mainly referred to some descriptive aspect of the technology. Evaluations of the free responses were predominantly positive, but some components also elicited negative associations, especially nuclear power. The free associations that people generate suggest that they have vague and unspecific knowledge about energy transition pathways, that they process them in an automatic and intuitive rather than deliberative manner, and that they have clear affective evaluations of the presented components

Risk Perception: the case of Microplastics. A discussion of enviornmental risk perception focused on the microplastics issue.

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Remembering and Communicating Climate Change Narratives – The Influence of World Views on Selective Recollection

We examine how people remember stories about climate change and how they communicate these stories to others. Drawing on theories of reconstructive memory and cultural theory, we assume that recollection is systematically affected by an individual’s world view as well as by the world view of the target audience. In an experimental study with a Norwegian representative sample (N = 266), participants read a story about three politicians, in which each protagonist was described as holding a specific world view and as trying to tackle climate change with a corresponding strategy (individualistic/free market oriented, hierarchical/technology-oriented, or egalitarian/sustainability-oriented). After 1 day and then after 1 week, participants were asked to retell the story as if to somebody who was characterized as being either an individualist, a hierarchist, or an egalitarian; in addition, a neutral recall control condition without a specified audience was included. Participants’ own world view was assessed and they were classified as endorsing individualism, or hierarchism, or egalitarianism. We hypothesized that retellings would be selectively reconstructed according to the world view of the participant, as well as tuned to the audience’s world view. We assessed the cognitive structure of the recollected story, and, using methods from computational text analysis, we computed similarities among retellings and the original narrative, and among retellings and world views. Results suggest that (i) retellings become less accurate over time, (ii) retelling to an audience with an explicit world view leads to more strongly filtered retellings than recalling without a specified audience, but the filter operates in a non-specific manner with respect to world views, (iii) the cognitive structure of the recollected story shows small but systematic differences concerning the link between story problem and solution as a function of the participant’s and the audience’s world view. No interaction was found between the world view of the participant and that of the audience. Results emphasize the role of world views in communicating climate change, and might help to better understand phenomena such as polarization and echo chamber effects

Mapping perceptions of energy transition pathways: Ascribed motives and effectiveness

© The Author(s) 2022.This study examines how people perceive possible pathways of a societal transition towards less carbon intensive means of energy production and use. Data were collected with questionnaires among samples of university students in Norway (N = 106) and Germany (N = 142). Participants selected from a set of 15 motives those which they considered to be strongly associated with each of 25 pathways, including examples such as public transportation and nuclear power. Participants also rated the effectiveness of each single pathway, that is, their perceived impact on climate change. Results indicate that the various pathways were associated with specific motives; for example, individual actions such as taking public transportation were closely associated with a self-restraint motive, pathways such as nuclear power and market strategies such as carbon offsets were closely associated with motives supporting free market and progress, and technological solutions such as solar panels and hydro power were associated with the motive for sufficient energy supply. The German and the Norwegian sample did not differ markedly in which pathways were associated with which motives; nor did effectiveness ratings for pathways differ between samples. Solar panels, wind farms, and hydropower were on average regarded as having a mitigating impact on climate change, whereas nuclear power was on average considered to have no mitigating impact. The findings are discussed in the context of public engagement with several of the suggested pathways, noting differences in perceptual patterns across samples.publishedVersio

Credible threat: Perceptions of pandemic coronavirus, climate change and the morality and management of global risks

Prior research suggests that the pandemic coronavirus pushes all the “hot spots” for risk perceptions, yet both governments and populations have varied in their responses. As the economic impacts of the pandemic have become salient, governments have begun to slash their budgets for mitigating other global risks, including climate change, likely imposing increased future costs from those risks. Risk analysts have long argued that global environmental and health risks are inseparable at some level, and must ultimately be managed systemically, to effectively increase safety and welfare. In contrast, it has been suggested that we have worry budgets, in which one risk crowds out another. “In the wild,” our problem-solving strategies are often lexicographic; we seek and assess potential solutions one at a time, even one attribute at a time, rather than conducting integrated risk assessments. In a U.S. national survey experiment in which participants were randomly assigned to coronavirus or climate change surveys (N = 3203) we assess risk perceptions, and whether risk perception “hot spots” are driving policy preferences, within and across these global risks. Striking parallels emerge between the two. Both risks are perceived as highly threatening, inequitably distributed, and not particularly controllable. People see themselves as somewhat informed about both risks and have moral concerns about both. In contrast, climate change is seen as better understood by science than is pandemic coronavirus. Further, individuals think they can contribute more to slowing or stopping pandemic coronavirus than climate change, and have a greater moral responsibility to do so. Survey assignment influences policy preferences, with higher support for policies to control pandemic coronavirus in pandemic coronavirus surveys, and higher support for policies to control climate change risks in climate change surveys. Across all surveys, age groups, and policies to control either climate change or pandemic coronavirus risks, support is highest for funding research on vaccines against pandemic diseases, which is the only policy that achieves majority support in both surveys. Findings bolster both the finite worry budget hypothesis and the hypothesis that supporters of policies to confront one threat are disproportionately likely also to support policies to confront the other threat.publishedVersio