Environmental Values and Behaviors: Strategies to Encourage Public Support for Initiatives to Combat Global Warming
By Deborah L. Rhode and Lee D. Ross
INTRODUCTION
This Essay explores public values and behaviors on environmental issues, particularly global warming. Its central concern is how to incentivize Americans to act in ways that are environmentally responsible, but are unlikely to have much direct benefit to them personally. Adverse climate change reflects multiple factors that any one individual can affect only at the margins. The consequences of this change are uncertain to some extent, and, if not reversed, likely to have the greatest adverse effect on future generations and on populations in vulnerable regions outside of the United States. The discussion that follows explores strategies for encouraging the public in general, and Californians in particular, to make global warming a more central personal and political concern despite the absence of ordinary personal incentives for doing so.
Significant progress on climate issues will require behavioral changes on several levels: voting, personal consumption, and support of environmental issues, initiatives, and organizations. This, in turn, will require that the public have sufficient information and sufficient motivation to act on that information. The following analysis will first survey public knowledge of global warming, as well as the degree of significance the public attaches to the problem. The discussion will then turn to the challenge of achieving behavioral changes and the lessons available from a quarter-century of relevant social science research. Findings from this body of work offer crucial insights for public policy makers about the most effective strategies for increasing public knowledge, concern, and *162 action on environmental issues related to global warning. Specific topics considered include: perceptions of and responses to risk, personal values, cognitive and motivational biases, peer influences and perceptions of social norms, and techniques to encourage environmental commitment and compliance. This Essay concludes with a summary of strategies that are most likely to be effective in increasing public support of global warming initiatives.
This Essay explores public values and behaviors on environmental issues, particularly global warming. Its central concern is how to incentivize Americans to act in ways that are environmentally responsible, but are unlikely to have much direct benefit to them personally. Adverse climate change reflects multiple factors that any one individual can affect only at the margins. The consequences of this change are uncertain to some extent, and, if not reversed, likely to have the greatest adverse effect on future generations and on populations in vulnerable regions outside of the United States. The discussion that follows explores strategies for encouraging the public in general, and Californians in particular, to make global warming a more central personal and political concern despite the absence of ordinary personal incentives for doing so.
Significant progress on climate issues will require behavioral changes on several levels: voting, personal consumption, and support of environmental issues, initiatives, and organizations. This, in turn, will require that the public have sufficient information and sufficient motivation to act on that information. The following analysis will first survey public knowledge of global warming, as well as the degree of significance the public attaches to the problem. The discussion will then turn to the challenge of achieving behavioral changes and the lessons available from a quarter-century of relevant social science research. Findings from this body of work offer crucial insights for public policy makers about the most effective strategies for increasing public knowledge, concern, and *162 action on environmental issues related to global warning. Specific topics considered include: perceptions of and responses to risk, personal values, cognitive and motivational biases, peer influences and perceptions of social norms, and techniques to encourage environmental commitment and compliance. This Essay concludes with a summary of strategies that are most likely to be effective in increasing public support of global warming initiatives.