Charles Vlek

Values, environmental concern, and environmental behavior: A study into household energy use

In this study, the role of values in the field of household energy use is investigated by using the concept of quality of life (QOL). Importance judgments on 22 QOL aspects could be summarized into seven clearly interpretable value dimensions. The seven value dimensions and general and specific environmental concern contributed significantly to the explanation of policy support for government regulation and for market strategies aimed at managing environmental problems as well as to the explanation of the acceptability of specific home and transport energy-saving measures. In line with earlier research, home and transport energy use were especially related to sociodemographic variables like income and household size. These results show that it is relevant to distinguish between different measures of environmental impact and different types of environmental intent. Moreover, the results suggest that using only attitudinal variables, such as values, may be too limited to explain all types of environmental behavior.

Measurement and determinants of environmentally significant consumer behavior

Measures of proenvironmental behavior in psychological studies do not always reflect the actual environmental impact of a person or household. Therefore, the results of these studies provide little insight into variables that could be helpful in reducing household environmental impact. In this article, an environmentally significant measure of household consumer behavior (i.e., combined direct and indirect energy use) is presented and compared with a common social science measure of proenvironmental behavior (based on popular notions of environmentally significant behavior). Two large-scale field studies were conducted among representative samples of Dutch households. The results showed respondents who indicate they behave more proenvironmentally do not necessarily use less energy. Also, proenvironmental behavior is more strongly related to attitudinal variables, whereas household energy use is primarily related to variables such as income and household size. More multidisciplinary research seems necessary to identify variables that influence the actual environmental impact of household consumer behavior.

Household preferences for energy-saving measures: A conjoint analysis

Studies on household energy use generally focus on social and psychological factors influencing the acceptability of energy-saving measures. However, the influence of physical characteristics of energy-saving measures on their acceptability is largely ignored. In this study, preferences for different types of energy-saving measures were examined, by using an additive part-worth function conjoint analysis. Energy-saving measures differed in the domain of energy savings (measures aimed at home energy savings versus measures aimed at transport energy savings), energy-saving strategy (technical improvements, different use of products, and shifts in consumption), and the amount of energy savings (small versus large energy savings). Energy-saving strategy appeared to be the most important characteristic influencing the acceptability of energy-saving measures. In general, technical improvements were preferred over behavioral measures and especially shifts in consumption. Further, home energy-saving measures were more acceptable than transport energy-saving measures. The amount of energy savings was the least important characteristic: there was hardly any difference in the acceptability of measures with small and large energy savings. Except for respondents differing in environmental concern, there were no differences in average acceptability of the energy-saving measures between respondent groups. However, some interesting differences in relative preferences for different types of energy-saving measures were found between respondent groups.

Instrumental-reasoned and symbolic-affective motives for using a motor car

This study was aimed at clarifying the relative importance of symbolic-affective as opposed to instrumental-reasoned motives for car use. We examined which motivational dimensions are underlying the (un)attractiveness of car use, in order to distinguish a limited set of main motive categories. Three methods were developed, which differed in the extent to which the purpose of the task was apparent. The tasks were: (1) a similarity sorting of car-use episodes, (2) a Q-sorting following attractiveness of car-use episodes, and (3) a semantic-differential method for evaluating (un)attractive aspects of car use. The symbolic-affective motives for car use were better expressed when the aim of the research task was not too apparent. If the aim of the task was evident, respondents tended to evaluate car use in terms of instrumental-reasoned motives. Overall, the results indicate that both instrumental-reasoned and symbolic-affective functions of the motor car are significant dimensions underlying the attractiveness of car use.

Judging risks and benefits in the small and in the large

Abstract Between April 1978 and October 1979 a large psychometric field study on personal judgments of divergent risky activities was carried out in and around the greater Rotterdam harbor area. Almost 700 adult women and men from three different age groups, and living at systematically varying distances from an area of heavy industries, were personally interviewed with the help of various psychometric judgment tasks. Here, a brief review is given of a theoretical scheme of “aspects of risky decision problems” underlying this empirical study. An account is given of the plan and methods for data collection and analysis. Multidimensional scaling analyses are reported which have resulted in three pairs of cognitive dimensions underlying sets of individual judgments of the “riskiness,” “beneficiality,” and “acceptability,” respectively, of a basic collection of 26 risky activities. “Riskiness,” for example, seems to have been conceptualized as depending upon the “size of potential accident” and the “degree of organized safety.” The various cognitive dimensions appeared to have a particular pattern of intercorrelations, and their interpretations were supported by several aspects of risky decisions, which had been explicitly judged in separate tasks. Respondents disagreed about the implicit weight given to secondary dimensions of “riskiness,” “beneficiality,” and “acceptability.” This could, to some extent, be traced back to systematic differences in group characteristics. The existence of such disagreement implies that average personal judgments of risk, benefit, and acceptability should be handled with extreme caution. Contrary to a classical thesis of risk analysts, no relation was observed between judgments of overall riskiness and those of overall beneficiality across the set of 26 activities. Scale values of the activities on “beneficiality” dimensions did, however, strongly correlate with dimension values of “acceptability.” This suggests that “riskiness” plays a secondary role in risk acceptance decisions. Some implications for understanding societal risk debates, as well as a few weaknesses of this and other risk perception studies, are mentioned. We finally discuss why, and how, risk—benefit perception studies could usefully serve risky decision makers.

RATIONAL AND PERSONAL ASPECTS OF RISK

Abstract Several ill-related lines of inquiry deal with problems of ‘risk’ and ‘perceived risk’. First, there is a handful of formal definitions of risk, and a line of normative-descriptive research on human decision making. Second, there is a social-clinical psychological body of theory and evidence on topics like stress, risk tolerance, and emergency decision making. And recently, a multi-disciplinary literature is developing on ‘risk analysis’. In it, one frequently encounters such ‘aspects of risk’ as ‘voluntariness of exposure’, ‘controllability of consequences’ and ‘catastrophality’. In this paper we will discuss contributions from these research lines in relation to one another. Our primary interest, however, lies in a ‘psychological categorization’ and a rational ordering of the many possible aspects of risk. Implications and the potential value of these schemes are discussed.

Environmental risk concern and preferences for energy-saving measures

It is often assumed that higher environmental concern goes with more positive attitudes toward environmental management strategies and more environmentally friendly behavior. Cultural theory argues this relationship is more complex. Cultural theory distinguishes four ways of life, involving distinct perceptions on environmental risks (so-called myths of nature), which are accompanied by preferences for specific management strategies. The results of this study suggest that environmental concern and myths of nature are overlapping constructs. Moreover, it appeared that respondents differing in environmental concern (as measured by the New Environmental Paradigm Scale and myths of nature) varied substantially in their preferences for environmental management strategies. Respondents with a high environmental risk concern had higher preferences for behavioral change strategies and government regulation, whereas respondents with a low environmental risk concern had higher preferences for market-oriented solutions. There was a tendency of technical strategies being more preferred by respondents with a low environmental concern.

Behavioral decision theory and environmental risk management: Assessment and resolution of four ‘survival’ dilemmas ☆

Abstract Environmental degradation and the call for ‘sustainable development’ provide an extended context and new challenges for decision-theoretic research on risk assessment and management. We characterize environmental risk management as the resolution of four different types of ‘survival’ dilemmas in human social activity: benefit-risk, temporal, spatial and social dilemmas. These may lead into traps which arise through discounting of risks, future and distant effects, and collective interests, respectively. Each type of dilemma is discussed separately, against the background of differing research traditions. The four types of dilemma may combine into various problems of environmental degradation; descriptive field research should clarify this in each case. For resolving such problems a number of policy strategies is discussed. The dilemmas paradigm suggests multidisciplinary research whereby decision theorists could play meaningful roles, e.g., in formulating decision problems, assessing environmental quality and risk, describing typical human responses to the threat of being trapped, and designing and evaluating ways to achieve a better position in a given dilemma.

Psychologists can do much to support sustainable development

With our biosphere steadily degrading, a solid psychological perspective on environmental, social, and economic (un)sustainability is urgently needed. This should supplement and strengthen biological, technological, and economic perspectives. After discussing positivistic and constructive psychology, we summarize major environmental problems with their social and economic implications. We also compose some essential psychological reasoning about them, including the commons dilemma model, different behavioral processes and strategies of behavior change, and various aspects of human quality of life (QoL). Psychologists can help analyze and mitigate the biggest sustainability problems: population growth, resource-intensive consumption, and harmful technologies-if their research is well-tuned to other environmental sciences, if the incentive structure for this work is improved, and if more attention is paid to the collective side of human behavior.

Collective risk generation and risk management: The unexploited potential of the social dilemmas paradigm

A social dilemma is a situation where a collective cost or risk is incurred, taken or generated through the combined negative external effects of various individuals who act (relatively) independently from one another. Vivid present-day examples of collective risk generation via individual activities are: littering of public places by individuals spending some time in them; threats to the quality of public education through individuals’ desires to increase private spending capacity; loss of natural open space through individual preferences for more spacious household premises; over-harvesting of ocean fish stocks for the survival of individual fishing organizations; local and regional air pollution from the use of numerous motor vehicles; and wholesale deforestation of tropical regions for the subsistence of local farmers and cattle-breeders. In many cases, collective risks also increase through the sheer growth in the number of separate actors such as inhabitants, households and commercial enterprises.