6. Environmental Psychology

Question 1

What is environmental psychology?

Answer 1

• discipline that studies the interplay between individuals and the built and natural environment
• influence of individuals on the environment: understanding and promoting sustainable behaviour

Question 2

What is pro-environmental behaviour?

Answer 2

• behaviour that consciously seeks to minimise the negative impact of ones actions on the natural and built world
• behaviour that harms the environment as little as possible or even benefits the environment
• can be goal-directed OR beneficial but not motivated by environmental goals

Question 3

What is a carbon footprint?

Answer 3

• total amount of greenhouse gases that are generated by our actions

Question 4

How is our carbon footprint expressed?

Answer 4

• carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e)

Question 5

How can self report be used to measure behaviour?

Answer 5

• ask individuals to report whether they engage in specific environmental behaviours
• how often and/or to what extent
• e.g do you use a reusable bag when shopping

Question 6

How can self report be used to measure intention?

Answer 6

• assess a persons stated intention or willingness to engage in future environmental behaviours
• often used to predict actual behaviour and understand motivational factors driving behaviour
• e.g i am willing to use public transport when possible

Question 7

What is an issue with using self-report to measure intention?

Answer 7

intention behaviour gap
- intention does not always match behaviour
- however useful for predictions

Question 8

How can a field setting be used to assess peoples behaviour?

Answer 8

• observe littering behaviour
• observing travel mode of morning commuters

Question 9

How can a lab setting be used to assess peoples behaviour?

Answer 9

• assess whether PPs turned off lab lights before moving room

Question 10

How can we measure the outcomes of peoples behaviour?

Answer 10

• indirectly measure peoples engagement in environmental behaviour by assessing outcomes that relate to these behaviours

Question 11

Do self report measures of pro-environmental behaviour reflect actual behaviour? (Kormos and Gifford experiment)

Answer 11

• slight tendency to over report behaviour
• average correlation between self report and actual behaviour r= 0.46

Question 12

What two processes drive pro-environmental behaviour?

Answer 12

system 1:
- a fast, automatic, largely unconscious and affect-driven process
- e.g habits, emotions and impulses
- big impact on our behaviour

system 2:
- slow, deliberate, reason-based and conscious process
- e.g knowledge, attitudes and beliefs

Question 13

What is the knowledge-deficit assumption?

Answer 13

• people lack knowledge of pro-environmental issues and therefore need education to explain why, when and how to act

Question 14

What did Staats, Wit and Maiden find in terms of education/information campaigns being effective?

Answer 14

• significant increase in knowledge about global warming amongst those who had seen the campaign
• very little to no impact on peoples behaviour

Question 15

How can feelings of disgust stop us from living sustainably? (yuck factor)

Answer 15

• disgust considered to be the emotion associated with the behavioural immune response
• psychological mechanism that enables people to detect the presence of parasites/pathogens in their environment and prompts them to avoid contact wit those object/individuals
• often important for health: however can be over conservative

Question 16

How did Menegaki et al find that we can overcome feelings of disgust?

Answer 16

subtle changes in framing
- ‘recycled water’ descriptor had higher willingness then ‘treated wastewater’

Question 17

What did Schwartz and Loewenstein find when assessing sadness as a driver of pro-environmental behaviour?

Answer 17

• general sadness = more sustainable ideology
• sadness evoking global warming video: larger donation than non-emotional video

Question 18

What are anticipated emotions?

Answer 18

• expectation that engaging in particular behaviour makes us experience positive/negative emotions

Question 19

What does research show about the power of emotional motives?

Answer 19

• can outweigh instrumental consequences of pro-environmental behaviour
• environmental campaigns that resonate with peoples feelings may be an important unexploited route to encourage pro-environmental behaviour

Question 20

Why do pro-environmental behaviours elicit positive and negative emotions?

Answer 20

hedonic:
- emotions related to environmental behaviour have their roots in the behaviour being pleasurable/unpleasurable

eudemonic:
- the view that positive and negative emotions related to environmental behaviour have their roots in the behaviour being a moral and meaningful experience