Hyper-altruistic behavior vanishes with high stakes

Using an incentivized experiment with statistical power, this paper explores the role of stakes in charitable giving of lottery prizes, where subjects commit to donate a fraction of the prize before they learn the outcome of the lottery. We study three stake levels: 5€ (n = 177), 100€ (n = 168), and 1,000€ (n = 171). Although the donations increase in absolute terms as the stakes increase, subjects decrease the donated fraction of the pie. However, people still share roughly 20% of 1,000€, an amount as high as the average monthly salary of people at the age of our subjects. The number of people sharing 50% of the pie is remarkably stable across stakes, but donating the the whole pie–the modal behavior in charity-donation experiments–disappears with stakes. Such hyper-altruistic behavior thus seems to be an artifact of the stakes typically employed in economic and psychological experiments. Our findings point out that sharing with others is a prevalent human feature, but stakes are an important determinant of sharing. Policies promoted via prosocial frames (e.g., stressing the effects of mask-wearing or social distancing on others during the Covid-19 pandemic or environmentally-friendly behaviors on future generations) may thus be miscalibrated if they disregard the stakes at play.

Environmental Education: Revealing Some Current Problems from Personal Opinion

Air and water pollution, wildlife habitat loss, soil desertification, and other environmental problems affect cities and the surrounding environment. Thus, increasing public environmental awareness and environmental literacy are essential for mitigating these problems. Although environmental education has been critical in solving problems that affect humans and the environment for more than five decades, the question remains whether the environment is improving or being degraded. Educators are devoted to popularizing environmental education, but as a result of many problems, people are gradually becoming paralyzed. Efficient methods of motivating people to perform environmentally friendly behaviors are required. Moreover, the term “environmental education” has been abused in some situations to receive government benefits. Thus, as an environmental educator and researcher, I provide opinions and reveal problems in environmental education.

Guess What …?—How Guessed Norms Nudge Climate-Friendly Food Choices in Real-Life Settings

Social norms, also called social comparison nudges, have been shown to be particularly effective in promoting healthy food choices and environmentally friendly behaviors. However, there is limited evidence on the effectiveness of these nudges for promoting sustainable and climate-friendly food choices and their potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support the related SDGs. The paper reports a field experiment that tests the effectiveness of two social norms in a real-life setting based on revealed preferences. The study distinguishes between the widely researched descriptive norms and guessed norms, the latter being tested in this context for the first time. While descriptive norms communicate typical patterns of behavior (e.g., 50% of canteen visitors choose vegetarian meals), guessed norms are determined by the individual’s best guess about the norm in a specific context. The results confirm a remarkable nudging effect of guessed norms: The higher the presumed proportion of vegetarian dishes sold, the lower the probability of choosing a vegetarian dish. Surprisingly, this effect is independent of the respective norm specification (meat or vegetarian norm). The paper provides advice for policy makers about when and how to use guessed norms.

Formation of Environmentally Friendly Tourist Behaviors in Ecotourism Destinations in China

The rapid development of ecotourism provides a win–win path for ecological and environmental protection and sustainable economic development. However, environmental problems are increasingly prominent in ecotourism destinations, which seriously hinders their sustainable development. This study explored how environmental knowledge, environmental perceived value, perceived consumption effectiveness, and environmental attitudes stimulate and shape environmentally friendly tourist behaviors. A sample survey of 406 tourists at Taibai Mountain National Nature Reserve in China was conducted, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to assess the causal relationships in the formation of environmentally friendly behaviors. The results show that environmental knowledge has a significant positive impact on environmental attitudes, environmental perceived value, and perceived consumption effectiveness. Further, environmental perceived value has a significant positive impact on environmental attitudes and environmentally friendly behavior; environmental attitudes and environmental behavior have a significant positive impact; environmental awareness has a significant positive impact on environmental behaviors; and perceived consumption effectiveness has a significant positive impact on environmentally friendly behaviors and is the most important direct predictor. Overall, the results reveal the formation mechanism of environmental friendly behavior, and provide a scientific basis and theoretical support for the stimulation and shaping of environmentally friendly tourist behaviors in ecotourism destinations.

The ebbs and flows of green waves: environmental sustainability in Grand Slam tennis

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to examine the structure and scope of environmental sustainability efforts of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments as communicated via their websites.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative content analysis methodology guided the study. To accomplish the goal of the study, the researchers analyzed each tournament's website and each venue's website to document the environmental initiatives outlined on these pages.FindingsResults indicated Grand Slam events focus primarily on energy and water conservation initiatives, increasing sustainable food choices and improving spectators' knowledge about environmental sustainability. Most sustainability programs fell into the first wave of sustainability efforts indicating that formalized strategic planning is largely missing.Practical implicationsBy examining how Grand Slam events utilize their webpages to promote environmental sustainability, implications are drawn for not only website content but also actual event initiatives and activities. Pertinent efforts should move from a mere focus on communication to finding actionable solutions built upon the interconnectivity of events with allied sectors and the subsequent forging of cross-industry partnerships.Originality/valueThe findings suggest that Grand Slam tennis events pursue different trajectories in engaging with sustainability. This makes it important to understand in tandem their organizational conduct, strategies and communication practices. To move forward, there is a need to approach sustainability in a more holistic manner. A holistic view of how sport events engage with the environment can reveal causal patterns and points of leverage to use for initiating a change of practice toward adopting environmentally friendly behaviors.

Good News or Bad News? How Message Framing Influences Consumers’ Willingness to Buy Green Products

Despite the growing social interest in green products, companies often find it difficult to find effective strategies to induce consumers to purchase green products or engage in other environmentally friendly behaviors. To address this situation, we examined the favorable or unfavorable effects of positive and negative message frames on consumers’ willingness to consume green products in different psychological distance contexts. Through two Studies, we found that the positive information framework played a more pronounced role in context when consumers were in closer spatial distances. More importantly, we found that the emotional factors of fear and hope were intrinsic causes of this phenomenon. Correspondingly, the negative information framework played a better facilitating role in context with farther spatial distance, while shame and pride were the emotions responsible for this effect. Finally, we discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of our work, as well as its limitations and future research directions.

Hyper-altruistic behavior vanishes with high stakes

Using a powered and incentivized experiment, this paper explores the role of stakes in charitable giving of lottery prizes, where subjects commit to donate a fraction of the prize before they learn the outcome of the lottery. We study three stake levels: 5€ (n = 177), 100€ (n = 168), and 1,000€ (n = 171). We find that individuals decrease the donated fraction of the pie as the stakes increase. However, people still share roughly 20% of 1,000€, an amount as high as the average monthly salary of people at the age of our subjects. We further report that the number of people sharing 50% of the pie is remarkably stable across stakes but donating the whole pie -the modal behavior in charity-donation experiments- disappears with stakes. Such hyper-altruistic behavior thus seems to be an artifact of the stakes typically employed in economic and psychological experiments. Our findings point out that sharing with others is a prevalent human feature, but stakes are an important determinant of sharing and policies frequently promoted via prosocial frames (such as stressing the effects of mask-wearing or social distancing on others during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic or environmentally-friendly behaviors on future generations) may thus be miscalibrated if they disregard the stakes at play.

Museums and Coping with Overtourism

Newer strains of tourism research are often aimed at finding out good practices for dealing with overtourism and propose a broader understanding of stakeholders of sustainable tourism development. Drawing on qualitative empirical findings from two institutions located in major tourism hubs in Poland, the authors inquire to what extent negative impacts of overtourism can be mitigated by museums. As the findings indicate, museums provide the commercial sector with good examples of conservation and adaptation of historic buildings to contemporary functions and encourage environmentally friendly behaviors. They can contribute to the quality of heritage narration and the quality of merchandise offered to tourists. They may have an impact on community cohesion and local residents’ quality of life as well as encourage immaterial heritage practices. Lastly, museums may exert indirect impact on transformations of urban space by getting involved in strategic planning and discussions on contemporary challenges of urban development.

The Persuasiveness of a Humorous Environmental Narrative Combined With an Explicit Persuasive Appeal

Entertainment narratives commonly feature explicit appeals to underscore important content therein. This strategy may also undermine the subtle approach that characterizes narrative persuasion. This experiment examined the effects of a pro-environmental public service announcement (PSA) combined with an entertainment narrative on environmental intentions and behaviors. Results revealed that the combination of an environmental narrative and PSA led to fewer intentions to engage in environmentally friendly behaviors than exposure to the environmental narrative alone. The PSA combined with the environmental narrative also led to greater perceived persuasive intent and, among those who held negative views about the environment, greater reactance and less environmentally friendly behavior.