scholarly journals Childhood roots of being green: Environmental morality and behavior in children and adults

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica A Stern ◽  
Meltem Yucel ◽  
Tobias Grossmann ◽  
Amrisha Vaish

How do environmental morality and sustainable behavior emerge in childhood? We examined individuals’ moral judgments of environmental actions and their observed sustainable behavior in an environmental trade-off task in a sample of N = 555 young adults (Study 1) and N = 45 children ages 3–10 (Study 2). We show that both children and adults viewed pro-environmental behavior positively and environmental harm negatively—even if the action was sanctioned by an authority figure; however, both children’s and adults’ judgments of actions impacting other people were stronger than judgments of actions impacting the environment. Among children, negative judgments of environmental harm strengthened with age, as did their preference to befriend a pro-environmental character. Sustainable behavior was associated with judgments of environmental harm among adults, but with judgments of pro-environmental actions among children. These findings point to both developmental continuity and change in environmental morality and behavior.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chenhao Hu ◽  
Zhen Wu

There is a growing concern for environmental issues and urgent need to understand interaction between human behavior and nature. Rewarding environmental protection and punishing harm can be the behavioral consequence of the moral judgment to environmental actions. Two studies (N = 211) were designed to understand the early development of such moral behaviors. In Study 1 and the follow-up conceptual replication Study 2, we performed 4- to 6-year-old children with both environmental protection and harm. Three tasks measured children’s behavioral responses toward environmental actions: reward the action that they think is good or punish the action that they think is bad even at a cost. Results demonstrated that children differentiate environmental actions and depicted an age-increase preference to environmental protection. Preschoolers, as a third-party bystander, actively punish environmental harm; with age, they become more consistently and steadily willing to be punitive even with a personal sacrifice. Together, young children are pro-environmental; from early in development children show a behavioral capacity to promote environmental good. The research fills the gap between moral judgment and behavior and contributes to applied implications.


2015 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 169-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lohyd Terrier ◽  
Benedicte Marfaing

This research applies the binding communication model to the sustainable communication strategies implemented in most hotels. The binding communication model links a persuasive message with the implementation of a low-cost commitment to strengthen the link between the attitudes and behavior of those receiving the message. We compared the effectiveness of a classical communication strategy (n = 86) with that of a binding communication strategy (n = 101) to encourage guests to choose sustainable behavior. Our results show that using the binding communication strategy generates significantly more sustainable behavior in guests than using the classical communication strategy. We discuss our results and suggest future avenues of research.


2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (S2) ◽  
pp. 95-95
Author(s):  
L. Romo ◽  
A. Morvannou ◽  
N. Cheze ◽  
C. Legauffre ◽  
C. Lucas ◽  
...  

Gambling behaviors of young adults may begin in adolescence and continue or even worsen in adulthood (Goudriaan et al., 2009).Even if the young adult population is not an homogeneous group, studies show that almost 5% of young people, against 1% in general population showed pathological gambling (Dyke, 2009)Our objective was to study the presence of problem gambling among a population of young adults in professional-schools.We included 629 people, average age 20 and 66.4% of men. We used a battery of assessment scales of consumption of alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, pathological gambling, compulsive shopping, video games addiction, anxiety and depression.The results show a prevalence of 1.6% of young people with a score of pathological gambling in the Canadian Problem Gambling Index (CPGI) and 7% with a score of problematic use.The findings regarding depression, anxiety and other dependencies will be discussed.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (10) ◽  
pp. 1425-1435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiffany L Berzins ◽  
Judith Gere ◽  
Scout M Kelly ◽  
John A Updegraff

This study investigated whether positive and negative romantic partner social control attempts (persuasion and pressure, respectively) were related to approach-avoidance motives and exercise among young adults ( N = 98), using daily reports. Daily persuasion was linked to higher daily approach motives. At the person level, persuasion was associated with higher approach and avoidance motives in addition to more frequent, longer exercise. Pressure was associated with higher daily relationship stress, which was associated with higher daily avoidance motives. At the person level, pressure was related to less frequent, shorter exercise. Thus, romantic partners’ social control use correlates with exercise motives and behavior.


Societies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah R. Marston

Information communication technology (ICT) is becoming a pivotal element in the twenty-first century, and while there has been substantial work conducted to understand ICT use by older adults, there is a paucity of knowledge relating to ICT use and behavior by Millennials. The Technology 4 Young Adults (T4YA) study opens the discussion to the barriers and enablers of ICT by Millennials in their day-to-day activities. Eight participants aged 18–33 years were recruited, and open-ended questions were posed to the focus groups participants. A total of three focus groups were conducted, two focus groups were conducted in Pontefract (West Yorkshire, England) and one focus group was conducted in Swansea (West Glamorgan, Wales); all focus groups were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Primary themes included: hardware, privacy issues/concerns, confidence, usability/functionality, day-to-day activities, and content/sharing of information. Day-to-day activities were undertaken primarily on smartphones, such as online banking and shopping, while privacy and trust concerns was a conversation thread throughout the discussions. Further work is needed with larger sample sizes, taking a multi-methods approach to extract quantitative data to underpin qualitative data analysis and frameworks. This exploratory study intersects at the fields of social sciences and human–computer interaction.


1984 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Rybash ◽  
William J. Hoyer ◽  
Paul A. Roodin

Forty older adults were administered the standard version (i.e. Other-orientation) of Rest et al.'s Defining Issues Test (DIT) and a modified version (i.e., Self-orientation) of the same instrument on two separate occasions. Contrary to the results of previous studies with children and young adults, the self/other manipulation in the present study failed to influence significantly older adults' moral judgments. The role of cognitive/perspective-taking and personal/affective factors in the moral reasoning abilities of the elderly, as well as those of children and young adults, are discussed.


2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 179-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomer Shechner ◽  
Nathan A. Fox ◽  
Jamie A. Mash ◽  
Johanna M. Jarcho ◽  
Gang Chen ◽  
...  

AbstractBehavioral inhibition (BI) is a temperament identified in early childhood that is associated with risk for anxiety disorders, yet only about half of behaviorally inhibited children manifest anxiety later in life. We compared brain function and behavior during extinction recall in a sample of nonanxious young adults characterized in childhood with BI (n = 22) or with no BI (n = 28). Three weeks after undergoing fear conditioning and extinction, participants completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging extinction recall task assessing memory and threat differentiation for conditioned stimuli. While self-report and psychophysiological measures of differential conditioning and extinction were similar across groups, BI-related differences in brain function emerged during extinction recall. Childhood BI was associated with greater activation in subgenual anterior cingulate cortex in response to cues signaling safety. This pattern of results may reflect neural correlates that promote resilience against anxiety in a temperamentally at-risk population.


2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew W. Savage ◽  
Allison M. Scott ◽  
Joanna A. Aalboe ◽  
Sharlee Burch ◽  
Pamela Sparks Stein VanArsdall ◽  
...  

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