Mapping our underlying cognitions and emotions about good environmental behavior: Why we fail to act despite the best of intentions

Abstract

Despite the widespread recognition of climate change as the single biggest global threat, the willingness of people to change their behaviour to mitigate its effects is limited. Past research, often focussing on specific categories of behaviour, has highlighted a very significant gap between people's intentions to behave more sustainably and their actual behaviour. This paper presents a new approach to this issue, by using more open-ended questions to map a much broader range of cognitions and emotions about good environmental behaviour. Two key findings emerged. Firstly, participants were aware of the contradiction between their level of concern about the environment and their willingness to act in more sustainable ways. The qualitative analysis further revealed that this discrepancy often hinged on a lack of knowledge about how to act more sustainably; the analysis also revealed a desire for more information about genuinely green behaviour. Secondly, pro-environmental behaviour was often conceptualised by participants in essentially 'social' terms; anticipated emotions relating to sustainable/non-sustainable behaviour were as closely tied to the behaviour of one's peers as to one's own behaviour. This finding suggests that we must highlight the social dimension in any interventions to increase sustainable behaviours amongst the public.

Transforming Consumer Behavior: Introducing Self-Inquiry-Based and Self-Experience-Based Learning for Building Personal Competencies for Sustainable Consumption

“…Learners then conceptualize and propose theories based on what they experience and observe (3). These concepts and conclusions, drawn primarily from personal experience, in turn provide the basis for future active experimentation (4). The process is cyclic because learners have new experiences based on previous experimentation [47].…”

“…The second key challenge was planned explicitly into the framework of the seminar, namely the confrontation with (inner) difficulties when putting personal transformation projects into practice (4). Despite initial information that the seminar would put students face to face with such difficulties, the intensity of the latter was underestimated by some.…”

“…Instead, "it seeks to enhance individuals' capacity to engage with more fundamental questions that also apply to other domains of life" [2] (p. 198). In this regard, both researchers working on sustainable consumption [3,4] and ESC scholars [5,6] point to the importance of personal competencies, especially affective-motivational ones, for achieving this goal.…”

The Conceptual Outline of Perception in Terms of Greimassian Semiotic Theory

“…In consequence of interpretation of the observer as a language personality with perceptive, cognitive, and emotional capacities (Brdar, 2010;Power, Beattie, & McGuire, 2017), the human organism as a holistic basis for construing divergent phenomena of perception keeps kindling the linguists' interest. Resultantly several linguistic schools have emerged.…”

Greimassian Semiotics of the Sensible Reinterpreted From the Perspective of Functional Grammar

“…Зокрема, корпоральна семантика (A. Damasio [2], G. Fauconnier [3], P. Gärdenfors [4]) та інтеграційна теорія пізнання (А.П. Мартинюк [5], R. Poznanski [6]) увиразнюють граничну роль тіла й емоцій для когнітивних процесів; у межах когнітивно-біхевіористського вчення (N. Power, G. Beattie, & L. McGuire [7]) актуальними є студії, спрямовані на вивчення екстеріоризованих емоцій і поведінкових реакцій, які зумовлені когнітивними операціями. Факти взаємозв'язку когнітивних структур (сприйняття, мови, мислення та дії) у процесі пізнання світу людиною перебувають у центрі уваги семіотико-афективної концепції (А.Ж.…”