ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY – SUMMARY
LECTURE 1: SETTING THE SCENE
LECTURE 1 ARTICLES
1. Dragons, Mules, And Honeybees: Barriers, Carriers, And Unwitting Enablers Of Climate Change Action
(Gifford, 2013)
2. Environmental Psychology Matters (Gifford, 2014)
3. A Room With A Cue: Personality Judgments Based On Offices And Bedrooms. (Gosling, Mannarelli, Morris,
2002)
4. The Tragedy Of The Commons. The Population Problem Has No Technical Solution; It Requires A
Fundamental Extension In Morality (Hardin, 1968)
1. DRAGONS, MULES, AND HONEYBEES: BARRIERS, CARRIERS, AND UNWITTING ENABLERS OF CLIMATE
CHANGE ACTION (GIFFORD, 2013)
ABSTRACT
• psychological dragons of inaction that impede green behaviors fall into 7 genera each with multiple species
of barriers to pro-environmental behavior.
• Mules: carry heavy loads of responsibility as they take major steps to mitigate climate change
• Honeybees: help the environment, but without intending to do so.
• 5 behavioral-science strategies that might help overcome the psychological barriers to climate action.
7 Dragons of inaction
1. Limited cognition:
• Less rational: Brain focused on the here and now, immediate risks, own brand and immediate
opportunities →The climate will cause what in 2080? Dealing with the slowly unfolding impacts of global
climate change does not come naturally.
• Ignorance: remain unaware of key environmental realities → citizens are paralyzed less by knowledge that
the problem exists than by a lack of knowledge about which actions to take, how to undertake actions of
which they are aware, and the relative benefits of different actions.
• Environmental danger messages from the media, the government, or scientists are too similar and too
frequent → weariness (vermoedheid) sets in
• Perceived or real uncertainty reduces the frequency of pro- environmental or sustainable behavior →
interpret uncertainty in self-serving ways
• Temporally and spatially discounting events and outcomes → believe that environmental conditions are
worse in countries other than their own and, people in those countries tend to believe the same thing
about other countries → less motivated to improve own environment + discounting future environmental
risks
• Optimism → underestimate their own objective risk from environmental hazards → hinders pro-
environmental action.
• Perceived lack of control: climate change is global → believe that their actions will lack efficacy.
2. Ideologies that foster inaction.
• Believe that a religious deity or Mother Nature, as a secular deity, is in complete control.
• Overconfidence in efficacy of technology → technology alone can solve the problem of climate change.
3. Other people
• Comparing situations → If significant others, family, and friends are not doing their part → not exert effort
either
• Social norms and perceived inequity → Why should I change if they won’t change?
4. Sunk costs
• Investments of money and time → financial investments → owning oil stocks + owning a car
• Habits resistant to change
,• Conflicting goals and aspirations → Everyone has multiple goals, and some of them clash with the goal of
making better environmental choices.
• Lack of attachment to one’s place of residence → nature-based but not civic-based place attachment is
related to more pro-environmental behavior
5. Disbelief, distrust and denial.
• Basic disbelief in others views → unlikely to take direction from them (politicians) → absent of trust
between some citizens and scientists or government officials, leads to resistance to their behavior-change
suggestions
• Policy makers have implemented many programs designed to encourage climate-friendly behavior → react
against policy threatening freedom
• Distrust and reactance (occurs when freedom of choice is threatened) slide into denial.
6. Perceived risks:
1) functional risk: Will a climate-positive technology work?
2) physical risk: environmental adaptations may pose, or be perceived as posing, a danger to self or family.
3) financial risk: Green solutions require capital outlays. How long is the payback period?
4) social risk: Others notice our choices → judgment by others, which could lead to reputation damage.
5) psychological risk: criticized or rebuked by others for making a green choice → risks damage to self-esteem
and possible losses of social resources
6) temporal risk: The time spent planning a green course of action might fail to produce the desired results
7. Limited behaviour
• Tokenism: I recycle, so I’ve done my part → behavior that is easy to adopt is used for tokenism, and often
are less climate positive than more difficult changes.
• Rebound effect: actually reverses any objective gains for the environment while allowing the person who
made the change to think that he or she has done the right thing
Most common dragons:
• Limited cognition (lack of perceived control), system justification, conflicting goals and aspirations (sunk
costs), and influence of other people.
3 main dragon factors:
1. Ideologies and belief in the free-market system: frequently endorsed reason for exploiting the fishery was
Earning some money seemed more relevant in this situation than maintaining the fish supply.
2. Discredence (disbelief and distrust) and other people: a common justification for overharvesting was I
simply did not trust the other fishers.
3. Limited cognition; a typical justification offered for overfishing was I didnt think that taking a bunch of fish
would really harm the supply.
Is there hope for climate change?
1. No: Structural barriers stand in the way of behavioral changes that would help mitigate climate change,
but many psychological barriers remain even for individuals who do not face structural barriers (7 dragons)
2. Maybe: 5 strategies
1) gaining a better understanding of the barriers that different groups of people face
2) educating about the differential efficacy of pro-environmental actions
3) improving education about climate change and communicating the problem more effectively
4) designing, implementing, and evaluating more effective interventions
5) working with other experts and policy makers.
3. yes:
- Mules: taking many steps to mitigate climate change, minority, carry heavy loads of responsibility and
action
- Honeybees: taking mitigating steps, but do not claim to be helping with climate change or the environment
7 families of “Dragons of inaction”
,1. Limited cognition: discounting time and place bound risk, plain ignorance, habituation, uncertainty → you
just don’t know
2. Ideologies: religious, technological, free market
3. Other people: anti-environmental examples create norm → social norms, social environment
4. Sunk costs: e.g., car ownership, habits in general
5. Disbelief, distrust, denial
6. Risks: a manifold (functional, physical, financial, social, psychological, temporal)
7. Limited behavior (symbolic behavior, rebound effects)
→ know them and come up with own examples!!!
2. ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS (GIFFORD, 2014)
ABSTRACT
• Environmental psychology examines transactions between individuals and their built and natural
environments.
- Includes investigating behaviors that inhibit or foster sustainable, climate-healthy, and nature-enhancing
choices, antecedents and correlates of those behaviors, and interventions to increase proenvironmental
behavior.
- Includes transactions in which nature provides restoration or inflicts stress, and transactions that are more
mutual, such as the development of place attachment and identity and the impacts on and from important
physical settings such as home, workplaces, schools, and public spaces.
- People spend more time in virtual environments, online transactions have increasing research attention.
• Every aspect of human existence occurs in one environment or another, and the transactions with and
within them have important consequences both for people and their natural and built worlds.
• Transactions between individuals and their built and natural environments
• Including:
- Behaviours that inhbit or foster
• Online transactions are coming under increasing research attention.
• Every aspect of human existence occurs in one environment or another.
• The transactions with and within them have important consequences both for people and their natural and
built worlds.
3. A ROOM WITH A CUE: PERSONALITY JUDGMENTS BASED ON OFFICES AND BEDROOMS. (GOSLING,
MANNARELLI, MORRIS, 2002)
ABSTRACT
• Model specifying links between (a) individuals and the physical environments they occupy and (b) the
environments and observers’ impressions of the occupants.
• 2 studies examined the basic phenomena underlying this model: Interobserver consensus, observer
accuracy, cue utilization, and cue validity.
• Observer ratings based purely on offices or bedrooms were compared with self- and peer ratings of
occupants and with physical features of the environments.
• Results: Findings varied slightly across contexts and traits, suggest that
a) personal environments elicit similar impressions from independent observers
b) observer impressions show some accuracy
c) observers rely on valid cues in the rooms to form impressions of occupants
d) sex and race stereotypes partially mediate observer consensus and accuracy
→ Consensus and accuracy correlations were generally stronger than those found in zero-acquaintance
research.
INTRODUCTION
• Hypothesize that individuals select and craft physical environments that reflect and reinforce who they are.
• propose that observers use the information available in everyday environments to form impressions of
what the occupants of those environments are like.
4 Research Questions
, General research question: can we deduce personality from the interior of a room?
1. Question 1. Consensus: Do Observers Agree About Individuals’ Personalities on the Basis
of Their Personal Environments?
- expected to find significant consensus among observer judgments based on the physical characteristics of
occupants’ personal environments.
- Testing by: examining the degree to which observers formed similar impressions on the basis of work and
living spaces.
2. Question 2. Accuracy: Are Observers’ Impressions Correct?
- Testing by: comparing the observers’ ratings with criterion ratings that were derived from self- and peer
reports of the target occupants.
3. Question 3. Cue Utilization and Cue Validity: Which Cues in Personal Environments Do Observers Use to
Form Their Impressions, and Which Cues Are Valid?
- To determine which aspects of personal environments observers might have used to make inferences
about the occupants, we correlated the observer judgments with coded features of the environments.
- Testing by: comparing the pattern of cue-utilization correlations with the pattern of cue-validity corre-
lations for each trait.
4. Question 4. Stereotype Use: How Do Stereotypes Used by Observers Affect Consensus and Accuracy?
- Testing by: examining the extent to which observers rated occupants they believed to belong to a given
social category (e.g., female, White) differently from occupants they believed did not belong to that
category.
- Tested whether perceived sex and race differences for a given trait matched actual sex and race
differences.
• Brunswik lens model elements in the environment can serve as a kind of lens through which observers
indirectly perceive underlying constructs
→ describe lens model !
• Cue utilization: link between the observable cue (organized desk) and an observer’s judgment
(conscientiousness).
- Cues that the observer uses
• Cue validity: link between the observable cue and the occupant’s actual level of the underlying construct
- Cues that are good predictors of a certain trait
