Henk Wilke

Effecting Durable Change A Team Approach to Improve Environmental Behavior in the Household

Interventions for voluntary proenvironmental behavior change usually target a limited number of behaviors and have difficulties in achieving durable change. The EcoTeam Program (ETP) is an intervention package that aims to overcome these flaws. Through a combination of information, feedback, and social interaction in a group—the EcoTeam—participants focus on the environmental consequences of their household behavior. The 3-year longitudinal study found that ETP participants (N= 150) changed half of the 38 household behaviors examined, with corresponding reductions on four physical measures of resource use. These improvements were maintained or enlarged 2 years after completion of the ETP, amounting to savings from 7% on water consumption to 32% on solid waste deposition. A detailed analysis of one behavior, means of transportation, suggests that change can be predicted from the interplay between behavioral intention and habitual performance before participation, and the degree of social influence experienced in the EcoTeam during participation.

Situational and personality factors as direct or personal norm mediated predictors of pro-environmental behavior: Questions derived from norm-activation theory.

Studies that use the norm activation theory (Schwartz, 1977) to explain pro-environmental behavior often focus on personal norms and on two situational activators, i.e., awareness of need and situational responsibility (e.g., Vining & Ebreo, 1992). The theorys other situational activators, efficacy and ability, and its personality trait activators, awareness of consequences and denial of responsibility, are generally ignored. The current article reports on two studies - a mail survey among the general public (N = 345) and a laboratory experiment among university freshmen (N = 166)–that found that (1) inclusion of additional activators improved the norm activation theorys potential to explain pro-environmental behavior and (2) personal norms significantly mediated the impact of activators on pro-environmental behavior. Theoretical issues and issues concerning environmental management evoked by these results are discussed.

SCARCITY OR ABUNDANCE CAUSED BY PEOPLE OR THE ENVIRONMENT AS DETERMINANTS OF BEHAVIOR IN THE RESOURCE DILEMMA

Abstract There is evidence that people respond differently to people-induced scarcities and abundances than to nature-induced ones. In a resource dilemma game, half of 72 subjects were confronted with a scarce remaining resource and the other half with an abundant one. Half of the subjects in each of these conditions learned that scarcity and abundance could be attributed to the members of their own group, while the other half believed that these circumstances were due to the environment. We found that subjects harvested more from the resource in abundance than in scarcity conditions. Furthermore, the difference in harvest size between scarcity and abundance conditions was greater in the environment condition than in the group condition. These results are contrasted to predictions derived from a rational economic analysis and a psychological model that accounts for the results is discussed.

Procedural justice and status: status salience as antecedent of procedural fairness effects

The current article explores status as an antecedent of procedural fairness effects (the findings that perceived procedural fairness affects peoples reactions, e.g., their relational judgments). On the basis of the literature, the authors proposed that salience of the general concept of status leads people to be more attentive to procedural fairness information and that, as a consequence, stronger procedural fairness effects should be found. In correspondence with this hypothesis, Experiment 1 showed stronger procedural fairness effects on peoples relational treatment evaluations in a status salient condition compared with a control condition. Experiment 2 replicated this effect and, in further correspondence with the hypothesis, showed that status salience led to increased cognitive accessibility of fairness concerns. Implications for the psychology of procedural justice are discussed.

The effect of social categorization on cooperation in three types of social dilemmas.

Abstract The present study investigated whether cooperation in various social dilemmas could be promoted by categorizing subjects at a group level rather than at a personal level. Three types of games were employed, i.e. the Prisoners Dilemma Game (PDG), the Chicken Dilemma Game (CDG) and the Trust Dilemma Game (TDG). Categorization level (Group vs. Personal) and Type of Game (PDG vs. CDG vs. TDG) constituted the 2 × 3 factorial design. As predicted from Social Identity Theory, Group Categorization elicited more cooperation than Personal Categorization. Additional data sustained a social identification interpretation. Second, it was investigated whether the rank order in cooperation among the three games, which were presented to the subjects in a lifelike format, would replicate the rank order observed in an abstract gaming study, and it did: in the PDG fewer cooperative choices were made than in the CDG, whereas in the CDG fewer cooperative choices were made than in the TDG.

Decision-induced focusing in social dilemmas : Give-some, keep-some, take-some, and leave-some dilemmas

Previous research on asymmetric social dilemmas has suggested that public good dilemmas evoke different choice behaviors than do resource dilemmas. The authors propose that these differences reflect a differential focus that is dependent on the way decisions are generally presented in the dilemma types. In agreement with this, the results of 2 experimental studies suggest that, in public good dilemmas, group members are less focused on the consequences of their actions for the final outcome distribution when deciding how many endowments they give to the public good than when deciding how many endowments they keep for themselves. In resource dilemmas, group members are less focused on the final outcome distribution when deciding how many endowments they leave in the collective resource than when deciding how many endowments they take.

Less power or powerless? Egocentric empathy gaps and the irony of having little versus no power in social decision making

The authors investigate the effect of power differences and associated expectations in social decision making. Using a modified ultimatum game, the authors show that allocators lower their offers to recipients when the power difference shifts in favor of the allocator. Remarkably, however, when recipients are completely powerless, offers increase. This effect is mediated by a change in framing of the situation: When the opponent is without power, feelings of social responsibility are evoked. On the recipient side, the authors show that recipients do not anticipate these higher outcomes resulting from powerlessness. They prefer more power over less, expecting higher outcomes when they are more powerful, especially when less power entails powerlessness. Results are discussed in relation to empathy gaps and social responsibility.

Value Orientation and Conformity

Three different types of N-person social dilemma games were employed: the Prisoners Dilemma (NPD), the Chicken Dilemma (NCD), and the Trust Dilemma (NTD). Subjects, who were classified a priori as either a cooperator (n = 58) or a defector (n = 68), participated in one of the social dilemma games before they received bogus feedback: they were told that the majority had chosen the defecting alternative D, or that the majority had chosen the cooperative alternative C. As predicted, (1) both before and after feedback, more defecting choices were made in the NPD than in the NCD, whereas in the NCD more defecting choices were made than in the NTD; (2) before and after feedback, defectors made more defecting choices than cooperators; (3) after majority D feedback more defecting choices were made than after majority C feedback. In addition, it appeared that in NPD and in NTD, defectors were especially sensitive to majority D feedback in that it facilitated their natural inclination to prefer D-choices. No support for Kelley and Stahelskis triangle hypothesis was observed.

Greed, Efficiency and Fairness in Resource Management Situations

Whereas rational choice theory predicts that harvesting in resource management situations is completely determined by greed, being the dominant choice, the GEF hypothesis predicts that although individuals are greedy (G), their greed is constrained by two other motives: the desire to use the resource efficiently (E) and the desire to realize fairness (F), referring to equal outcomes for all participants. The GEF hypothesis was corroborated by results from several computer-controlled experiments. It can account for (a) the pattern of individual responses to choices made by other group members, the impact of (b) environmental uncertainty and (c) social uncertainty, and (d) the conditions under which freedom of access is abandoned in favor of leadership.

Group Belongingness and Procedural Justice: Social Inclusion and Exclusion by Peers Affects the Psychology of Voice.

The authors focus on the relation between group membership and procedural justice. They argue that whether people are socially included or excluded by their peers influences their reactions to unrelated experiences of procedural justice. Findings from 2 experiments corroborate the prediction that reactions to voice as opposed to no-voice procedures are affected more strongly when people are included in a group than when they are excluded from a group. These findings are extended with a 3rd experiment that shows that people who generally experience higher levels of inclusion in their lives respond more strongly to voice as opposed to no-voice procedures. It is concluded that peoples reactions to procedural justice are moderated by peoples level of inclusion in social groups.