| 1. |
- Bergquist, Magnus, 1983, et al.
(författare)
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Self-persuading norms: Adding a self-persuasion technique strengthens the influence of descriptive social norms
- 2022
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Ingår i: Social Influence. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1553-4510 .- 1553-4529. ; 17:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Social norms have been implemented to change a variety of behaviors. Yet, these studies show noticeable dispersion of effects. We suggest that such dispersion is partially due to people perceiving reasons for following a certain norm to be more or less appealing. In testing this proposition, we couple descriptive norms with a self-persuading technique (i.e. the self-persuading norm). We propose that the self-persuading norm operate in two steps: 1) self-persuasion leads to value-matched information, 2) value-matched information is more self-relevant, making the norm more influential. Across three experiments, we consistently found that self-persuading norms are more influential than simple descriptive norms and a control condition. The practical applications are straightforward: adding self-persuasive content seems to strengthen the descriptive norm.
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| 2. |
- Ejelöv, Emma, 1989, et al.
(författare)
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Can Unexpected Support Promote Environmental Policy Acceptability? An Experimental Investigation of Norm Source and Strength
- 2022
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Ingår i: Journal of Social and Political Psychology. - : Leibniz Institute for Psychology (ZPID). - 2195-3325. ; 10:1, s. 123-140
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Two experiments tested how environmental policy acceptability of US conservatives and liberals was influenced by manipulating the level (minority vs. majority) and source (in-group vs. outgroup) of normative support for policy. Results from 928 MechanicalTurk users (Study 1: N = 268, Study 2: N = 660) indicated that when evaluating an in-group policy (that participants expect their own political group to support), communicating outgroup support increases acceptability compared with communicating in-group support. The outgroup norm has a positive indirect effect via the inference that the in-group is even more supportive of the policy than the outgroup is. In contrast, when evaluating an outgroup policy, communicating in-group support indirectly yields higher acceptability than communicating outgroup support, via the inference that the outgroup is more supportive than the in-group is. This effect mainly occurred for individuals with strong ideological identification and was independent of level of support (minority vs. majority). Results indicate that bipartisan support for environmental policies can be achieved by strategic communication of normative information about political groups.
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| 3. |
- Ejelöv, Emma, 1989
(författare)
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On the psychology of environmental policy and the influence of social norms
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Current environmental challenges, such as greenhouse gas emissions and water pollution, are large-scale problems that will be difficult to solve without the intervention of governments or the coordinated cooperation of a large number of people. While governments can steer citizen behavior in a pro-environmental direction by the use of environmental policies, the implementation of such policies is often hindered by negative public opinion. In other cases, it may not be desirable for governments to regulate citizen behavior. In such situations, large-scale cooperation among citizens can be encouraged by communicating social norms in favor of pro-environmental behavior. In this thesis, I apply a psychological perspective on environmental policy research to understand how laypeople perceive policies, and how social norms can be utilized to promote environmental policy acceptability and behavior intentions. As some research on laypeople attitudes towards environmental policies use categorizations that are made on assumptions of how laypeople perceive such policies, the aim of Study 1 is to provide empirically valid categorizations of policies based on laypeople attitudes towards the policies. We assessed the attitudes of 2911 Swedish citizens towards 44 environmental policies currently in use in Sweden. An exploratory factor analysis indicated that Swedish citizens perceive three categories of policies, one consisting of push policies (regulatory and market-based policies using disincentives), one of pull policies (market-based instruments using incentives) and one of informational policies (such as labeling). Results suggest that some current policy categorizations used in research may not adequately capture how Swedish citizens perceive environmental policies. Study 2 consists of two experiments investigating how normative information, in the form of public opinion, may affect attitudes toward environmental policies when the policy issue is perceived to be polarized along ideological lines. The results of a total of 928 American citizens indicated that an outgroup norm may promote acceptability of environmental policies when the policy is perceived to ideologically belong to the person’s in-group. For example, when conservatives are positive toward a perceived liberal policy, liberals become more positive towards the policy. Conversely, we found that conservatives became more positive toward a perceived liberal policy when exposed to information that other conservatives were positive toward the policy. This is suggestive of a positive effect of an in-group norm when the policy is perceived as an outgroup policy. These results suggest that careful use of the public opinion from different political groups may be used to promote environmental policy acceptability in a polarized context. Study 3 investigates whether the influence of descriptive norms is moderated by perceptions that normative behavior is performed due to either intrinsic or extrinsic motivation. We hypothesized that pro-environmental descriptive norms would be more influential when attributing others’ pro-environmental behavior as intrinsically rather than extrinsically, motivated. Over two experiments (N = 1326), we compared participants’ intention to purchase pro-environmental products between four conditions: control condition vs intrinsic norm vs extrinsic norm (Exp. 1) vs injunctive norm (Exp. 2). Results consistently showed a significant increase in pro-environmental purchase intention in the intrinsic norm condition compared to both extrinsic norm condition (Exp. 2) and no-information control condition (Exp. 1 & 2).
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| 4. |
- Ejelöv, Emma, 1989, et al.
(författare)
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Push, Pull, or Inform - An Empirical Taxonomy of Environmental Policy Support in Sweden
- 2022
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Ingår i: Journal of Public Policy. - 0143-814X. ; 42:3, s. 529-552
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Research on environmental policy support utilises different categorisations of policies, for example, differentiating between policies assumed to be perceived as rewarding or punishing. Do citizens' perception of environmental policies also lend itself to this categorisation? Based on an exhaustive sample of active policies in Sweden, this study presents a taxonomy of environmental policy support in Sweden. A fairly representative Swedish sample (N = 2911) rated the acceptability of 44 environmental policies. Exploratory factor analysis indicated that participants' acceptability of policies forms three categories: push policies consisting of regulatory and market-based disincentives, pull policies consisting mainly of market-based incentives, and informational policies, such as ecolabeling. Sociodemographics had small but consistent effects on attitudes towards the three categories, while political ideology had a larger effect across the categories. This study indicates that current academic categorisations may not adequately capture laypeople's perceptions, and discusses the importance of research on driving mechanisms behind the current taxonomy. © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press.
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| 5. |
- Ejelöv, Emma, 1989, et al.
(författare)
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Why are they eco-friendly? Attributing eco-friendly descriptive norms to intrinsic motivation increases pro-environmental purchase intention
- 2022
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Ingår i: PloS one. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 17:10
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- People perform pro-environmental behaviors not only out of intrinsic motivation, but also due to external factors such as expected social approval or financial gain. To the extent that people use their own motivations to infer the motivation of others, people may view descriptive norms favoring pro-environmental behavior as extrinsically motivated. This may in turn decrease the normative influence of the norm, as conformity can be negatively affected by perceptions that others are conforming mindlessly. While descriptive norms generally promote pro-environmental behavior change, the influential power of descriptive norms varies between studies. One possible explanation for these inconclusive findings is that people interpret others' behavior as either intrinsically- or extrinsically motivated. We propose that pro-environmental descriptive norms will be more influential when attributing others' pro-environmental behavior as intrinsically (e.g., pleasure of contributing to the environment) rather than extrinsically, motivated (e.g., fear of social disapproval). In two experiments (N = 1326), we compared participants' intention to purchase pro-environmental products between four conditions: control condition vs intrinsic norm vs extrinsic norm (Exp. 1) vs injunctive norm (Exp. 2). Results consistently found a significant increase in pro-environmental purchase intention in the intrinsic norm condition compared to both extrinsic norm condition (Exp. 2) and no-information control condition (Exp. 1 & 2). These studies highlight that attribution of behavior is vital for the adoption of pro-environmental norms.
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