Lunch Talk: Environmental behavior as a social dilemma: The impact of asymmetric opportunities among the actors

Talk by Laila Nockur, Department of Psychology, Aarhus University

Oplysninger om arrangementet

Tidspunkt

Torsdag 15. april 2021,  kl. 12:00 - 13:00

Sted

Zoom meeting ID 683 3980 1642

Join here: https://aarhusuniversity.zoom.us/j/68339801642

Sustainable consumption of common resource constitutes a social dilemma, a situation in which individual and collective interests are in conflict. Furthermore, opportunities to access common resources are often distributed asymmetrically among the actors involved. It is examined if and under what conditions asymmetric distribution of opportunities affects sustainable behavior. We implemented common resource games varying whether all group members have the same extraction opportunities (symmetric distribution) or two group members have advantaged extraction opportunities compared to two disadvantaged group members (asymmetric distribution). In the first study, we compared behavior under individual versus collective choice. In the second study, we examined whether a change in extraction opportunities from an asymmetric to a symmetric distribution fosters sustainable behavior. Results indicate that asymmetric distribution of opportunities can foster unsustainable behavior. Collective choice fostered more sustainable behavior, whereas redistributing extraction opportunities did not.

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