Browsing by Subject "Umweltverhalten"

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Communicating climate change : how proximising climate change and global identity predict engagement
(2018) Loy, Laura Sophia; Trepte, Sabine
The majority of scientists express an urgent need to limit climate change in order to ensure sustainable development, but our societies are not reacting decisively enough to achieve this goal. My research aims to understand how news about climate change can be communicated to convey scientific knowledge and support climate protection. Proximising climate change by focussing on local instead of global or remote consequences has been recommended as a promising communication strategy. The reasoning is that many people seem to perceive climate change as a phenomenon that affects mainly other people in far-off places (i.e., psychological socio-spatial distance). Proximising might bring climate change closer. However, the recommendation still lacked convincing empirical evidence. Thus, my research investigated the communication of proximity vs. distance in news coverage. Specifically, I examined the process assumed to be behind proximising effects, namely a reduction of the psychological socio-spatial distance of climate change, which might increase issue relevance and in turn promote climate protective behaviour and climate change knowledge. In Study 1 (N = 498), people were asked to what extent the news communicated climate change as something affecting mainly other people in distant locations. The more they perceived news communication as socio-spatially distant, the higher their psychological socio-spatial distance of climate change and the lower relevance they attributed to the issue. Perceived communicated socio-spatial distance was indirectly and negatively related with climate protective behavioural knowledge through higher psychological socio-spatial distance. Study 2 (N = 99) found no evidence that communicating socio-spatial proximity vs. distance of climate change in a news text influences psychological socio-spatial distance, relevance attributed to the news text, climate protective behaviour, and climate change knowledge. However, the test power was not sufficient to detect small effect sizes. In Study 3 (N = 508), proximising climate change in a news text decreased the psychological socio-spatial distance of climate change and indirectly and positively predicted climate protective behaviour as well as climate change knowledge through lower psychological socio-spatial distance and higher relevance attribution. While the indirect relations were small, stronger relations might arise if people repeatedly receive local information. I thus suggest that it is worthwhile to complement news about global climate change with reports about regional impacts. As a second objective, I aimed to illuminate whether the concept of a global identity helps to explain why proximising might not always be necessary or useful. I assumed that the more people identify with people all over the world, the more relevant they evaluate climate change to be and the more they are motivated to take climate protective action and acquire climate change knowledge. Moreover, I supposed that people with a strong global identity might evaluate climate change as relevant regardless of whether they perceive that the consequences mainly affect other people in distant places. In other words, a global identity might bridge the psychological socio-spatial distance of climate change. In Study 1, global identity positively predicted the relevance attributed to climate change and climate protective behaviour, as well as climate change knowledge indirectly through relevance attribution. In Study 2, the global identity dimension of self-investment positively predicted climate protective behaviour. However, global identity did not bridge the psychological socio-spatial distance of climate change in either study. I further reasoned that the negative relation between psychological socio-spatial distance and relevance attribution might be weaker if global identity is made salient. In other words, a salient global identity might bridge the psychological socio-spatial distance of climate change. In Study 3, before reading the news text, participants watched either a control video or a video showing a man dancing with people all over the world, which communicated a feeling of connectedness. While participants who received the control video evaluated the news text as less relevant as their psychological socio-spatial distance of climate change increased, there was no such relation among participants who received the connectedness video. Moreover, communicated proximity vs. distance in the news text did not indirectly predict climate protective behaviour and climate change knowledge in the latter group. This suggests that communicating connectedness might be a way to bridge the distance of climate change communication and render issues that are perceived as affecting mainly other people in far-off locations more relevant to recipients.
Umweltfreundliches Verhalten am Arbeitsplatz – Analyse der Determinanten und Untersuchung eines umfassenden Modells
(2016) Ostertag, Felix; Hahn, Rüdiger
While considering moral, rational, and affective motivational factors the main purpose of this doctoral thesis is to promote a better understanding of the complex relationships between various determinants that influence employees’ pro-environmental behavior at work (PEB@work). Empirical studies on the employees’ level are scarce and often limited by an exclusive set of examined variables that either focus on a particular theoretical foundation (e.g., rational choice theory) or analyze behavior against the background of a specific psychological perspective (e.g., industrial and organizational psychology). In contrast, recent conceptual studies try to cover a broad range of possible determinants of PEB@work. However, they also fail to be exhaustive and additionally lack empirical validation. A comprehensive empirical analysis of individual factors is therefore a promising approach in providing a coherent picture of various motivational drivers of pro-environmental behavior and their complex interrelationships in the workplace. My outline of the theoretical origins and foundations of pro-environmental behavior research highlights the potential benefits of a synthesis of different theories and models (i.e., the Value-belief-norm theory, the Theory of planned behavior, and mosaics from additional affective theories that either regard the environmental context or the workplace). After introducing workplace specifics, I present distinct domains of pro-environmental behavior (i.e., energy and water conservation, mobility, responsible consumption, eco-activism, and recycling and waste avoidance). A thorough literature review of PEB@work studies, finally, leads to the formulation of 19 hypotheses and the development of a holistic model of pro-environmental behavior at work. In order to test whether the model is suitable for a large proportion of employees, the final sample consisted of working students, allowing me to capture employees that usually only have little to moderate positional power. Structural equation modelling with AMOS was employed separately for each of the pro-environmental domains to confirm the fit of the collected data for the respective PEB@work model. Previously conducted quasi-exploratory factor analyses (EFA) and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) ensured the reliability and validity of measurement scales and latent variables. Model fit statistics and the variance explained reveal that the comprehensive PEB@work model fits the data convincingly well. The model is able to account for both, domain-specific pro-environmental behavior as well as unspecific pro-environmental behavior. Moreover, the results clearly show that pro-environmental behavior of employees is caused by a complex framework of causal dependencies between a diverse set of moral, rational, and affective determinants. These determinants vary in their influence depending on the considered domain. For most pro-environmental domains intentions are the best proximal predictor of PEB@work, followed by personal norms and subjective norms. However, regarding employees’ mobility and recycling behavior, perceived behavioral control is the most crucial factor. An additional objective of this doctoral thesis was to provide a theoretically grounded and comprehensible guide for practitioners on how to promote PEB@work of employees by means of interventions. To do so, an analysis of a broad range of antecedent and consequence intervention techniques was conducted, allowing me to identify which determinants of PEB@work these techniques are likely to address. Additionally, I developed a “9-paths-approach” that describes several paths within the tested model that organizational leaders and supervisors can basically take to encourage and support their employees’ pro-environmental efforts. Both, interventions and paths, combined with the empirical results led to the deduction of appropriate intervention techniques for each pro-environmental domain. Surprisingly, the dominant value orientation of employees (i.e., self-transcending values vs. self-enhancing values) is almost negligible, when supervisors have to decide which intervention to implement. In sum, on the basis of the developed model, the dissertation allows for a more in-depth understanding of the underlying motivational processes of PEB@work and provides theoretically grounded insights for practitioners to effectively target the diverse determinants of PEB@work.