scholarly journals Old minds, new marketplaces: How evolved psychological mechanisms trigger mismatched consumption responses

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michal Folwarczny ◽  
Tobias Otterbring ◽  
Valdimar Sigurdsson ◽  
Lynn K. L. Tan ◽  
Norman Li
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Consumer Behavior ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Status Signaling ◽  
Evolved Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
The Common

The national lockdowns related to the COVID-19 pandemic revealed that few days of limited travel and consumption are enough to improve air quality worldwide, thus contributing to sustainable development. But under regular circumstances, shoppers are reluctant to change their consumption habits for the common good. Why is that? To answer this question, we delineate proximate and ultimate explanations of consumer behavior. The former—pervasive in the marketing literature—focuses on how behaviors occur, whereas the latter—underrepresented in marketing thought and practice—focuses on why human evolution fashioned such behaviors. The evolutionary approach to consumer behavior considers both explanations. We draw on the fundamental motives framework, which explains why certain behaviors—often irrational at first glance—solve specific adaptive problems found in ancestral and modern societies. Finally, we show how evolutionary mismatches—where mechanisms solving adaptive problems in ancient times produce maladaptive outcomes nowadays—distort optimal and sustainable decision-making in three domains: voting, buying status-signaling goods, and food consumption. We conclude by showing how to apply the law of law's leverage to facilitate cost-effective policymaking.

The Breath of Life

2019 ◽  
pp. 1574-1592
Author(s):  
Gönül Kaya Özbağ
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Corporate Citizenship ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Ethical Concept ◽  
Global Corporate Citizenship ◽  
The Common ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter aims to contribute to the debate about corporate social responsibility (CSR), sustainable development (SD) and global corporate citizenship (GCC) that is becoming increasingly an important issue for the human well being as well as that of ecological systems. It contains three sections. The first section looks at the concept of CSR with a historical perspective. The dimensions of CSR and its relationship with ethical theories is investigated in the second section since CSR is an ethical concept. Throughout this chapter three main groups of ethical theories classified by Garriga and Mele (2004) will be presented such as normative stakeholder theory, universal rights, the common good approach. Based on the relationship between common good approach and sustainable development, the author will discuss a requirement for global corporate citizenship approach in the third section.

Democratic Deliberations, Equality of Influence, and Pragmatism

1998 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 253-272
Author(s):  
Judith Baker
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
Political Equality ◽  
Current Program ◽  
The Common ◽  
To Come ◽  
Ideal Framework ◽  
The Ideal

Democracy is committed to procedures of decision-making which express the values of both political equality and truth. One current program, that of strong or deliberative democracy, explicitly defends institutions which reflect the dual commitments to truth and equality. Like many other political theorists, however, deliberative democrats do not address the issue of a minority group which always loses the vote. The presumption is that free and equal deliberation by agents who think in terms of the common good is sufficient for political equality. I will argue, however, that the proposed deliberative procedures do not preclude persistent failure for a minority, and that this problem should lead us to acknowledge that power relations can underpin decision-making arrangements even within the ideal framework of deliberative democracy. Political equality and effective political equality seem to come apart.In order to come closer to the idea of effective political equality, this paper will look at the notion of equality of influence. It may seem tautological, and so redundant, to argue that political egalitarians and particularly deliberative democrats need to recognize equality of influence.

scholarly journals Getting to agreement: mechanisms of deliberative decision-making

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 374-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik O. Eriksen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
The European Union ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Social Events ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Decision Making

Deliberation has not only epistemic and moral value, it also has transformative value. Even if deliberation faces the problem of indeterminacy, it is assumed to have explanatory power. This article spells out why this is so and suggests a way to establish the causing effect of deliberation. It outlines a reason-based (RB) model of political decision-making applicable also to international affairs. By specifying a theory of argumentation on collective decision-making, we get to the nuts and bolts of deliberative decision-making, which, when supported by institutional powers, ensures a justified and well-grounded decision. The model contains a set of rules of inference and offers ‘mechanismic’ accounts of social events. It allows for explanations, but not predictions. The RB model conceives of decision-making as consisting of three sequences: claims-making, justification, and learning, each containing a set of explanatory mechanisms: values referring to conceptions of the common good, mandatory norms concerning the right thing to do, and evidence to the fact that non-compliance is wrong. The explanatory potential of this scheme is exemplified with reference to agreement making in the European Union. Some actors changed opinion voluntarily with regard to empowering the European parliament.

Smashing myths and delivering value—a repeatable approach to sustainable development

2012 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 189
Author(s):  
Nicholas Fleming ◽  
Susanne Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Large Range ◽  
Climate Extremes ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Social Expectations ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Common ◽  
Global Communications

Organisations that develop and operate capital assets, including public and private infrastructure, face an increasingly challenging task. A large range of factors needs to be addressed to develop and operate an asset successfully during its economic life. These factors include changing temperature and climate extremes, heightened social expectations, fast global communications that heighten visibility and transparency, new regulations and pricing regimes, and economic values being placed on what were once intangibles (like biodiversity). Leading organisations recognise this as a challenge to design, deliver and operate smarter, more sustainable and cost effective solutions. What is clear is that many organisations are struggling to achieve this. How to bridge the gap between business policies for sustainable development and practice is the central question. The common perceptions prevail that sustainability is ‘just a green issue’, will ‘delay my project’ and cost more. Yet in practice, the opposite is often true. This paper uses real project examples to demonstrate how integrated, smart design processes can simultaneously de-risk assets, save money and deliver better social and environmental outcomes.

scholarly journals The Common Good Provision Scale (CGP): A Tool for Assessing People’s Orientation towards Economic and Social Sustainability

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cinzia Castiglioni ◽  
Edoardo Lozza ◽  
Andrea Bonanomi
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Tax Evasion ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Social Sustainability ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Personal Gain ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Common ◽  
Good Provision

Many governments and institutions are currently challenged with insecurity, economic instability, and ongoing turbulence which may undermine the quality of life of each human being and the sustainable development of civil society. As this kind of sustainable development is strictly related to the promotion of the ‘common good’, it is of paramount importance to understand the different motives that lead people to give their contribution to the common good, in order to sustainably align individual needs with the needs of the society. By adopting a psychological perspective for the promotion of the sustainable development, the aim of this study is to develop and validate a new metric, the Common Good Provision scale (CGP), to assess people’s orientation towards economic and social sustainability. Items were generated from a preliminary qualitative study investigating meaning and representations on the common good and its provision. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were undertaken to validate and improve the scale. The final scale, which consists of seven items, contains two dimensions: Accessibility (i.e., making the common good accessible to anyone and fulfilling people’s basic needs) and Personal Gain (i.e., getting a return and personal advantage in exchange for one’s contribution). In addition, we tested a model in relation to a specific form of contribution: Paying taxes and making charitable donations, that are two complementary ways to financially provide for the common good. It was found that when the Accessibility motive prevails, people are more willing to pay taxes and make donations, whereas when the Personal Gain motive prevails, people are more likely to commit tax evasion and less willing to make monetary donations. The study is novel in that it represents the first attempt to develop a metric to assess people’s motives towards the common good provision. Potentialities and further applications of the CGP scale to other contexts are discussed in relation to the promotion of people’s wellbeing and sustainable development.

scholarly journals Niṣkāmakarma: A Philosophical Analysis in Light of the Prisoner's Dilemma and the Concept of Degrowth

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 3-30
Author(s):  
Tommi Lehtonen ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Prisoner's Dilemma ◽  
Prisoner’S Dilemma ◽  
The Other ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
Personal Benefit ◽  
The Common ◽  
Harmful Effects

The prisoner's dilemma famously shows that individuals seeking their own benefit end up with a worse outcome than could be achieved through cooperation. This dilemma provides an effective but neglected method for the study of the Hindu principle of "desireless action" (niṣkāmakarma). In the context of the prisoner's dilemma, one or the other of the following decision-making strategies is feasible for prisoners who want to follow the principle of "desireless action": (1) to be indifferent and to leave the decision to chance (e.g. by arbitrarily drawing lots) or (2) to pursue the common good or the benefit of the other (by remaining silent) instead of seeking primarily to benefit oneself (by confessing). The second strategy is more appropriate assuming the following: the followers of the principle of "desireless action" can be goal-oriented and target-driven, as long as unselfish goals are considered, while remaining indifferent and non-attached in terms of personal benefit. This interpretation is tested and further discussed in this article in light of the values of the modem environmental and anti-consumerist degrowth movement. A non-profit orientation and the emphasis on duties are shared by the concepts of degrowth and niṣkāmakarma. Social- or reality-centredness rather than self-centredness is also common to both concepts. The degrowth movement focuses on economic contraction and deceleration, and thus its scope is narrower and more specific than that of niṣkāmakarma. Moreover, the degrowth movement rejects economic grovrth because of its ecologically and socially harmful effects, such as pollution and income inequality, but it is - at least in theory - indifferent to the harmless results of economic activities. On the contrary, the principle of niṣkāmakarma involves a critical stance toward both good and bad results of actions, insofar as they are pursued because of self-regarding desires.

scholarly journals Georgia’s rural hospital closures: The common-good approach to ethical decision-making

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 297-303
Author(s):  
Randi Bastian ◽  
◽  
Marcus Garner ◽  
John Barron ◽  
Emmanuel Akowuah ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Ethical Decision ◽  
Ethical Decision Making ◽  
Rural Hospital ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Hospital Closures ◽  
The Common
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document