Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Roles Of Identity And Beliefs About Social Change In Decision Making Processes For Identity-Laden Social Change Efforts, Joel Ginn

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents three investigations into distinct processes that attempt to explain people’s decision making around social change action in three identity-laden domains. Chapter 1 reviews existing literature and theory on how social identity and social change beliefs can impact social change action. Chapter 2 examines identity-based motivated cognition by showing how identification as a meat-eater leads to biased estimates of meat reduction’s climate change impacts. Chapter 3 examines cisgender student reactions to faculty who use gender pronouns as an inclusion strategy for transgender and gender nonconforming students to examine if this action leads to stereotyping and judgement. Chapter 4 …

Coping With Climate Change, Andrea Yj Mah

Masters Theses

Climate change is a source of anxiety and stress. To be resilient to the changes that are occurring, individuals must cope with that stress. Because there are many ways that people might manage stress we examined variation in coping strategy use among Americans who reported some concern about climate change to understand generally how people cope with such stress, and whether it can be predicted from individual difference factors, namely degree of climate change concern and political ideology. We examined these variables specifically because in the study of responses to climate change, conservatives and liberals often report divergent beliefs, attitudes, …

The Climate Crisis: How Communication And Norms Interact With Attitudes And Actions, Kathryn Aldstadt

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

The present study investigated the effect of communication strategies and social norms on peoples’ self-reported environmental attitudes and actions. Communication strategies that cause high-fear levels in viewers can often cause distress, thereby increasing the likelihood that viewers will disregard a message in favor of protecting themselves (Clayton, 2020; Hornsey et al., 2015). Communication strategies that cause low-fear can serve as healthy motivators for action (Nestler & Egloff, 2012). Social norms are powerful, and people are likely to follow the same behavior pattern as others. In the current study, participants (N=71) watched a Public Service Announcement (PSA) video and either had …

Perceived Cultural Impacts Of Climate Change Motivate Climate Action And Support For Climate Policy, Kim-Pong Tam, Angela K. Y. Leung, Brandon Koh

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The impacts of climate change on human cultures have received increasing attention in recent years. However, the extent to which people are aware of these impacts, whether such awareness motivates climate action, and what kinds of people show stronger awareness are rarely understood. The present investigation provides the very first set of answers to these questions. In two studies (with a student sample with N = 199 from Singapore and a demographically representative sample with N = 625 from the USA), we observed a generally high level of awareness among our participants. Most importantly, perceived cultural impacts of climate change …

Why Aim Law Toward Human Survival, John William Draper

Librarian Scholarship at Penn Law

Our legal system is contributing to humanity’s demise by failing to take account of our species’ situation. For example, in some cases law works against life and supports interests such as liberty or profit maximization.

If we do not act, science tells us that humanity bears a significant (and growing) risk of catastrophic failure. The significant risk inherent in the status quo is unacceptable and requires a response. We must act. It is getting hotter. When we decide to act, we need to make the right choice.

There is no better choice. You and all your relatives have rights. The …

Beliefs, Information, And Institutions: Public Perception Of Climate Change Information Provided By Government Versus The Market, Cherie Metcalf, Jonathan R. Nash

Faculty Articles

Despite scientific consensus over the threat posed by climate change, governmental actions remain modest or stalled, often because of profound societal polarization: more liberal individuals tend to accept climate change as real, anthropogenic, and as posing a substantial (if not existential) threat, while more conservative individuals tend to doubt such assertions. The standard explanation for this phenomenon is that liberals tend to believe government-provided information—as information about climate change tends to be—while conservatives tend to doubt it. Commentators suggest that market-generated climate change information would more likely sway conservatives.

But this assertion lacks any empirical support. This Article explores this …

Graduating Greener: Analysis Of A Non-Price Intervention To Encourage Pro-Environmental Behavior Among College Students, Jillie Santos

Honors Theses

According to the Yale Program on Climate Communication, a majority of Americans report worrying about climate change, yet the proportion of Americans who discuss climate change often with friends and family is around half of the worried percentage. This discrepancy illustrates a habit of climate avoidance and climate inaction. Drawing upon psychology and human-centered design, I assisted Dr. Michael A. Smyer in developing Graduating Greener, a workshop aimed at disrupting climate avoidance and promoting pro-environmental behavior through a sequence of social, environmentally-based activities. In this thesis, I investigate concepts from the field of behavioral economics which inform and align with …