scholarly journals Access to Environmental Cognitive Alternatives Predicts Pro-Environmental Activist Behavior

2021 ◽  
pp. 001391652110650
Author(s):  
Joshua D. Wright ◽  
Michael T. Schmitt ◽  
Caroline M. L. Mackay
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Representative Sample ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Environmental Identity ◽  
Environmental Status ◽  
Willingness To Engage

We expand on the plausible role of access to cognitive alternatives to the environmental status quo (i.e., the ability of people to imagine what a sustainable relationship with nature would look like) in motivating pro-environmental collective action. Using a representative sample of Canadians on age, gender, and ethnicity ( N = 1,029) we evaluate the associations between access to environmental cognitive alternatives, politicized environmental identity, and willingness to engage in pro-environmental activist behavior. Additionally, we move beyond self-reported behavior by giving participants the opportunity to write and sign a pro-environmental letter to the Canadian Minister of the Environment and Climate Change. Our results suggest that access to cognitive alternatives is associated with stronger politicized environmental identity, greater willingness to engage in pro-environmental activist behavior, and increased likelihood of writing and signing a pro-environmental letter. All methods and analyses follow our preregistration and all materials and data are openly available.

scholarly journals Access to Environmental Cognitive Alternatives Predicts Pro-Environmental Activist Behavior

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua D. Wright ◽  
Michael T. Schmitt ◽  
Caroline Mei Li Mackay
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Identity ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Environmental Identity ◽  
Environmental Status ◽  
The Status ◽  
Canadian Survey ◽  
Willingness To Engage

We extend social identity models of pro-environmental collective action by expanding on the plausible role of access to cognitive alternatives to the environmental status quo (i.e., the ability of people to imagine what a sustainable relationship with nature would look like). Using a representative Canadian survey on age, gender, and ethnicity (N = 1029) we evaluate the associations between access to environmental cognitive alternatives and politicized environmental identity and willingness to engage in pro-environmental activist behavior. Additionally, we extend research using exclusively self-reported outcomes by giving participants the opportunity to write and sign a pro-environmental letter to the Canadian Minister of the Environment and Climate Change. Our results suggest that envisioning specific ways in which the status quo can be changed is associated with stronger politicized environmental identity, greater willingness to engage in pro-environmental activist behavior, and increased likelihood of writing and signing a pro-environmental letter to the Canadian Minister of the Environment and Climate Change. All methods and analyses follow our preregistration (https://osf.io/b56ry) and all materials and data are openly available (https://osf.io/24yeq/).

scholarly journals Imagining a Sustainable World: Measuring Cognitive Alternatives to the Environmental Status Quo

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua D. Wright ◽  
Michael T. Schmitt
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Identity ◽  
Strong Predictor ◽  
Reliability And Validity ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Environmental Status ◽  
Initial Scale ◽  
Mitigate Climate Change ◽  
Additional Variance ◽  
Willingness To Engage

We build on social identity models of environmental collective action by considering the role ofpeople’s access to cognitive alternatives to the environmental status quo. We developed a new measure of cognitive alternatives to the environmental status quo, and examined its ability to predict environmental activist identification and willingness to engage in environmental activism. In Study 1 (N = 386), we developed the initial scale, and found evidence for its reliability and validity. The ability to imagine cognitive alternatives was associated with other relevant social identity and environmental variables including perceived legitimacy of the current environmental status quo, pro-environmental consumer and activist behavior, and beliefs in anthropogenic climate change. In Study 2 (N = 393), we confirmed the factor structure of the scale and found that it was a strong predictor of environmental activist identification, explaining variance beyond extensive control variables including identification with nature. It also explained additional variance in willingness to engage in activist behavior beyond even environmental activist identification. Our results suggest that the ability to imagine cognitive alternatives to the environmental status quo might have important implications for whether people engage in pro-environmental collection action to mitigate climate-change and other environmental problems.

scholarly journals EIMECA: A Proposal for a Model of Environmental Collective Action

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 5935
Author(s):  
Beatriz Carmona-Moya ◽  
Antonia Calvo-Salguero ◽  
María-del-Carmen Aguilar-Luzón
Keyword(s):  
Structural Equation Modeling ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Environmental Identity ◽  
Group Efficacy ◽  
Action Model ◽  
Identity Model

The deterioration and destruction of the environment is becoming more and more considerable and greater efforts are needed to stop it. To accomplish this feat, all members of society must identify with solving environmental problems, environmental collective action being one of the most relevant means of doing so. From this perspective, the analysis of the psychosocial factors that lead to participation in environmental collective action emerges as a priority objective in the research agenda. Thus, the aim of this study is to examine the role of “environmental identity”, as conceptualized by Clayton, as a central axis for explaining environmental collective action. The inclusion of the latter in the theoretical framework of the SIMCA (social identity model of collective action) model gives rise to the model that we have called EIMECA (environmental identity model of environmental collective action). Two studies were conducted (344 and 720 participants, respectively), and structural equation modeling was used. The results reveal that environmental identity and a variety of negative emotional affects, as well as group efficacy, accompanied by hope for a simultaneous additive effect, are critical when it comes to predicting environmental collective action.

EIMECA: A Proposal for a Model of Collective Environmental Actions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beatriz Carmona-Moya ◽  
Antonia Calvo-Salguero ◽  
M.Carmen Aguilar-Luzón
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Psychosocial Factors ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Environmental Action ◽  
Environmental Identity ◽  
Group Efficacy ◽  
Negative Affects ◽  
Environmental Actions

The deterioration and destruction of the environment is becoming more and more considerable and greater efforts are needed to stop it. To accomplish this feat, all members of society must identify with environmental problems, with collective environmental action being one of the most relevant means of doing so. From this perspective, the analysis of the psychosocial factors that lead to participation in environmental collective action emerges as a priority objective in the research agenda. Thus, the aim of this study is to examine the role of "environmental identity" as conceptualized by Clayton, as a central axis for explaining environmental collective action. The inclusion of the latter in the theoretical framework of the SIMCA model gives rise to the model that we have called EIMECA. Two studies were conducted, and the results reveal that environmental identity, a variety of negative affects, as well as group efficacy accompanied by hope for a simultaneous additive effect, are critical when it comes to predicting environmental collective action.

scholarly journals Adapting as usual: integrative and segregative institutions shaping adaptation to climate change in local public administrations

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 557-578 ◽  
Author(s):  
MATTEO ROGGERO ◽  
ANDREAS THIEL
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Transaction Costs ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Adaptation To Climate Change ◽  
Transaction Costs Economics ◽  
Do So ◽  
The Way

AbstractLocal administrations play a key role in delivering adaptation to climate change. To do so, they need to address collective action. Based on transaction costs economics, this paper explores the role of so-called integrative and segregative institutions in the way local administrations adapt – whether their different functional branches respond to climate change collectively rather than independently. Through a comparative analysis of 19 climate-sensitive local administrations in Germany, the paper shows that variation in the way local administrations structure their internal coordination determines the way they approach climate adaptation. Under integrative institutions, local administrations adjust prior coordination structures to accommodate adaptation. Under segregative institutions, administrations move towards integrative institutions in order to adapt, provided they already ‘feel’ climate change.

scholarly journals Bees, Extinction and Ambient Soundscapes: An Exploratory Environmental Communication Workshop

Humanities ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 153
Author(s):  
Rosamund Portus ◽  
Claire McGinn
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Visual Communication ◽  
Environmental Communication ◽  
Potential Benefits

As a response to the challenges that visual communication, popularly used in environmental communications, poses for more embodied engagements with climate change, this article focuses upon the neglected role of sound within environmental and climate communication scholarship. Focusing upon the decline of bees as a meaningful topic for the exploration of climate change, this article draws on research conducted with participants of a soundscape workshop to investigate the potential benefits and limitations of using sound-based activities to communicate about a specific climate change topic. This article demonstrates that modes of communicating climate change that encourage people to participate in imaginative, creative and future-based thinking can provide an effective way to engage audiences with the topic of climate change, thus encouraging greater individual and collective action.

scholarly journals Too Hot to Handle: Climate Change and Agricultural Water Use

2011 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Denise Fort
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Rights ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Western United States ◽  
Irrigated Agriculture ◽  
Agricultural Water ◽  
Agricultural Water Use ◽  
The Status ◽  
Water Uses

The world faces enormous challenges in responding to looming crises in food and water. Responding to this challenge will require flexibility; such flexibility may be impeded by legal institutions. This paper looks at the western United States and discusses the role of irrigated agriculture in that region. Because of climate change, a growing population, declining groundwater, the need to protect ecosystems and other conflicts, the author suggests that all water uses, including long-standing agricultural water rights, need to be examined in light of these changes. Legal systems have tended to serve the status quo, but perhaps the law can help facilitate this re-examination.

Collective angst and group continuity as predictors of collective action for progressive city policies

2021 ◽  
pp. 136843022098760
Author(s):  
Michał Jaśkiewicz ◽  
Tomasz Besta ◽  
Judyta Borchet
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Collective Actions ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Action Intention ◽  
Willingness To Engage

Paweł Adamowicz, the liberal mayor of Gdańsk, Poland, died on January 14, 2019, after being stabbed by a man who rushed onstage during a charity event. Four studies were carried out to analyze the predictors of willingness to engage in collective action in support of the progressive city policies he initiated. In Study 1 ( N = 214), collective angst was related to collective action intention. Identification with Gdańsk mediated this relation. In the next two studies, we tested the role of the perceived continuity of the in-group. The relationship between collective angst and willingness to support collective actions was mediated by perceived essentialist continuity of the group (Study 2, on snap election day, N = 121). Moreover, results confirmed that collective angst predicted strength of identification with Gdańsk. This identification was related to the perceived essentialist continuity of the group, which in turn was linked to willingness to engage in collective actions in support of progressive policies (Study 3, N = 98). In Study 4 ( N = 456), conducted within a few days before the presidential election in Poland, we replicated the model of mediation obtained in Study 3, and showed that contextualized collective angst also predicted collective action intentions.

scholarly journals The Role of Environmental Attitudes in Explaining Public Perceptions of Climate Change and Renewable Energy Technologies in Lithuania

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4376
Author(s):  
Aistė Balžekienė ◽  
Agnė Budžytė
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Risk Perceptions ◽  
Environmental Attitudes ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Environmental Identity ◽  
Balance Of Nature ◽  
Renewable Energy Technologies ◽  
Energy Technologies

The Baltic states in general and Lithuania in particular represent a controversial combination of rapidly increasing climate change impacts and moderate or low concern with the climate crisis. A value shift is essential for the societal support and acceptance of renewable energy solutions. This study investigates the role of environmental attitudes in shaping the acceptance and risk perceptions of renewable energy technologies. The article analyses how environmental attitudes are shaping public attitudes towards climate change and perceptions of renewable energy technologies in Lithuania using New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) and environmental identity questions. The study analyses data from a representative public opinion survey with 1029 respondents conducted in Lithuania. The results reveal that environmental identity is a more significant factor in shaping risk perceptions of renewable technologies than is the NEP scale. The balance of nature dimension from the NEP is more closely related to perceptions of renewables than are humans’ right to rule claims. The results show that environmental attitudes have low explanatory power in explaining perceptions of energy technologies in Lithuania.

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