Zoe Leviston

What drives communities' decisions and behaviours in the reuse of wastewater

This paper outlines a five year investigation which aimed to develop a measurement to predict community intended behaviour in relation to the reuse of wastewater. It has been apparent that communities support the concept of water reuse as a means of responsible water resources management. However, reactions from people when it comes to actually using the recycled water are frequently quite different, particularly when it involves close personal contact or ingestion of the water. Little has been known of how people make their decisions to accept or reject schemes. Therefore, a research program was designed to systematically identify, measure and test the major factors that govern peoples decision-making. A social experiment was designed whereby a large group of random community members participated in tasting and swallowing what they believed to be recycled water from different sources and products grown with recycled waters. This provided an immediate experience for the development of measures of psychological and other factors in decisions to taste and/or swallow. This then formed the basis for whole of city surveys which tested and refined an hypothesised model of intended behaviour, and three case studies over time which sought to replicate the model.

Supporters and Opponents of Potable Recycled Water: Culture and Cognition in the Toowoomba Referendum

Public opposition to potable recycled water remains an implementation barrier. A potable recycled water scheme was rejected in a referendum by the Toowoomba community of Queensland, Australia. Toowoomba is treated here as a case study. Focus groups were undertaken with supporters and opponents of recycled water to qualitatively explore influences on their voting behavior in the referendum. The theoretical frameworks of cultural theory and motivated social cognition are used together to analyze the values, beliefs, and psychological needs shaping recycled water attitudes and policy preferences. The results illustrate how popular value-basis theories play out at the local level through community recycled water discourse. Differences were observed in attitudes to uncertainty and change, and reliance on worldview arguments. Biases in information processing were revealed, with supporters and opponents selectively attending to information aligned with their own values. Worldview and selective cognition influenced levels of trust in authorities and perceived risk.

Predicting community acceptability of alternative urban water supply systems: A decision making model

With the growing need for Australian cities to augment their water supplies, the community has displayed increasing interest in alternative water sources. Public attitudes have ranged from enthusiasm to concern, and in some cases have resulted in the rejection of potential new water supplies. To date, there has been little research that has attempted to examine and understand the basis of community acceptance of a new water supply system. This paper outlines a research program that aimed to develop a model of community acceptance that was consistent over different scales, source-points, end-uses and users of current and future water supply systems. It describes the development of an hypothesised model of community acceptance which incorporated a range of psycho-sociological variables. This then went through a preliminary assessment, followed by testing of the model, and finally a confirmatory stage of research. The program resulted in a robust model that can assist planners and developers in understanding and gaining community acceptance of alternative water supply systems at a range of spatial and temporal scales.

Comparing Public Perceptions of Alternative Water Sources for Potable Use: The Case of Rainwater, Stormwater, Desalinated Water, and Recycled Water

This research investigated how people’s perceptions of alternative water sources compare with their perceptions of other technologies, and identified significant predictors of comfort with different alternative water sources. We drew on data from four questionnaire survey studies with a total sample of more than 1200 Australian participants. Relative levels of comfort with the alternative water sources was consistent across the four studies: comfort was always highest for drinking rainwater and lowest for drinking recycled water, with comfort with drinking treated stormwater and desalinated water sitting between these two. Although comfort with drinking recycled water was always lowest of the four alternative water sources, participants were significantly more comfortable with drinking recycled water than they were with nuclear energy, or with using genetically modified plants and animals for food. In general, demographic variables were less important predictors of comfort with alternative water sources than were psychological variables; only age and gender emerged as relatively consistent predictors for recycled water, stormwater, and desalinated water, with older participants and males more comfortable with drinking these water sources. Of the psychological variables, participants’ comfort with technology in general, trust in science and trust in government emerged consistently as significant positive predictors of comfort with drinking recycled water, stormwater, and desalinated water.

Assessing climate change beliefs: Response effects of question wording and response alternatives

To date, there is no ‘gold standard’ on how to best measure public climate change beliefs. We report a study (N = 897) testing four measures of climate change causation beliefs, drawn from four sources: the CSIRO, Griffith University, the Gallup poll, and the Newspoll. We found that question wording influences the outcome of beliefs reported. Questions that did not allow respondents to choose the option of believing in an equal mix of natural and anthropogenic climate change obtained different results to those that included the option. Age and belief groups were found to be important predictors of how consistent people were in reporting their beliefs. Response consistency gave some support to past findings suggesting climate change beliefs reflect something deeper in the individual belief system. Each belief question was assessed against five criterion variables commonly used in climate change literature. Implications for future studies are discussed.

Using social representations theory to make sense of climate change: what scientists and nonscientists in Australia think

The mass media has ensured that the challenging and complex phenomenon of climate change now has the household familiarity of a brand name. But what is it that is understood by climate change, and by whom? What frame of reference is drawn upon to communicate meaningfully about climate change? Do particular subgroups within our society hold different understandings, or have the debate and the prolific dissemination of information about this issue coalesced around a core perception or image of what climate change is? To answer these questions, we conceptualized climate change within the theory of social representations as emergent socially constructed knowledge. We analyzed word association data collected in Australia from persons identifying as having a scientific, government, or general public background (N = 3300). All respondents were asked to write the first words that came to mind when they thought about climate change. Comparative analyses of the word associations reveal that respondents from different backgrounds define climate change in different ways. The results suggest that there is a common core set of concepts shared by the different groups, but there are also a great many differences in how climate change is framed and conceived by respondents. The results are discussed in relation to what they imply for responses to climate change by these social groups and in relation to interventions designed to encourage climate adaptation.

Key Influences on the Adoption of Improved Land Management Practice in Rural Australia: The Role of Attitudes, Values and Situation

Abstract The importance of farmers’ values and attributes in their decisions to adopt more sustainable land management practice is receiving greater attention. In this paper we detail research undertaken in two dryland farming regions of central New South Wales, Australia. The research demonstrates the role and influence of landholder attributes and stated environmental values on land management practice in the context of prolonged drought conditions. Two studies were conducted with dryland agriculture farmers ’ a thematic analysis of 61 interviews, and regression modelling based on a survey of 300 land managers. Several key factors contributing to the adoption of sustainable management practice were identified. Findings suggest that farmers’ current enterprise focus is vital in determining receptivity to new farming techniques and incentive programs provided by natural resource management authorities. Results also suggest that a focus on biospheric values and a sense of being able to control one’s destiny are significant precursors to engaging in sustainable land management practice. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is used to illustrate barriers to the adoption of recommended land management practice in times of environmental stress and hardship.

Climate Change Skepticism and Voting Behavior What Causes What

Political will for action on climate change requires support from the electorate and low levels of climate change skepticism. Rational models suggest that skepticism influences voting behavior; however, other theories suggest the reverse direction of influence may also hold. There is a body of research on associations between climate change skepticism and political preferences, but this has been limited to cross-sectional analyses. This article uses longitudinal data and cross-lagged modeling to infer the direction of influence in a post-election context. We found that voting behavior influenced climate change skepticism after an election more than climate change skepticism influenced voting intentions. This suggests that partisan politics increases fluctuations in climate change skepticism, and there may be more or less opportune times to pursue climate change policies. Similar research is now needed in pre- and mid-election cycle contexts to determine the direction of influence over the election cycle.

Green-Tinted Glasses: How Do Pro-Environmental Citizens Conceptualize Environmental Sustainability?

ABSTRACT Recent research has shown that many Australians see pro-environmental behaviour as desirable and identify as being green. However when compared to other countries, Australians score poorly on pro-environmental behaviour measures, engaging mostly in tokenistic pro-environmental actions, and demonstrate low levels of concern for the environment. In this article, we examine this tension through exploring the meaning of the term sustainability to Australian participants who self-identify as pro-environmental. Twenty-six interviews were conducted and analysed using a causal layered analysis. Through the examination of participants’ environmental discourse and practices, some of the deeper socio-psychological processes influencing pro-environmental behaviour are revealed. While participants aspired to be green, their actions were bound by cultural traditions and world views that perpetuate environmental degradation. Participants struggled to define the term sustainability and held self-enhancing motives for adopting what they identify as a pro-environmental identity. These findings highlight the influence of collective cultural constructs in shaping how pro-environmental behaviours are understood and enacted.

Cooperation studies of catastrophe avoidance: implications for climate negotiations

The landmark agreement recently negotiated in Paris represents an ambitious plan to combat climate change. Nevertheless, countries’ current climate pledges are insufficient to achieve the agreement’s goal of keeping global mean temperature rise “well below” 2 ∘C. It is apparent that climate negotiators need to be equipped with additional strategies for fostering cooperation if a climate catastrophe is to be averted. We review the results arising from an emerging literature in which the problem of avoiding dangerous climate change has been simulated using cooperation experiments in which individuals play a game requiring collective action to avert a catastrophe. This literature has uncovered five key variables that influence the likelihood of avoiding disaster: (1) the perceived risk of collective failure, (2) inequalities in historical responsibility, wealth, and risk exposure, (3) uncertainty surrounding the threshold for catastrophe, (4) intergenerational discounting, and (5) the prospect of reward or punishment based on reputation. Along with the results of a recent experimental assessment of the key instruments of the Paris Agreement, we consider how knowledge of the effects of these variables might be harnessed by climate negotiators to improve the prospects of reaching a solution to global climate change.