The implications of group norms for adaptation in collectively managed agricultural systems: evidence from Sri Lankan paddy farmers

Abstract

A growing literature seeks to explore the factors shaping adaptation to climate change. In collectively managed common pool resource systems, there is often a tension between behavior that benefits the individual and actions that benefit a larger group. Resource users in sustainable systems must therefore work together to ensure outcomes that are beneficial to the group as a whole. However, in the face of changing social, political, and environmental conditions, community norms may change, leading to the emerging of new behavioral patterns. Understanding when and why people decide to act in ways that benefit the group as a whole can help policy makers better target policies or change incentives to promote desired outcomes. This research seeks to build on research in common pool resource management and multilevel selection to understand how and why collective pressures shape individual adaptation behavior. Using qualitative data from in-depth interviews of farmers in Sri Lanka, this study confirms that collective management practices in Sri Lankan irrigation systems significantly influence farmer's potential adaption behaviors. Based on farmer's explanations of their own behavior, we hypothesize that farmer's belief in the ecological necessity of cooperation and explicit government support for collective action are important drivers of collective action. Given the influence of community rules and norms, we conclude that efforts at adaptation are more likely to be successful if they target farmer organizations and communities as a whole rather than individual farmers.

Protecting the commons: Predictors of willingness to mitigate communal land degradation among Maasai pastoralists

“…Indeed, empirical research supports this suggestion, demonstrating that achieving cooperative consensus and internalizing corresponding cooperative norms are essential for making decisions that maximize collective (rather than individual) benefit (Kerr et al, 1997;. The relevance of group norms for motivating sustainable resource use has also been demonstrated in field contexts related to over-consumption of environmental resources (Goldstein, Cialdini, & Griskevicius, 2008;Schultz et al, 2007), including agricultural practice (Fielding et al, 2008), and its adaptation to climate change in non-Western contexts (Tozier de la Poterie, Burchfield, & Carrico, 2018;Truelove et al, 2015).…”

Willingness to cooperate in shared natural resource management is linked to group identification through perceived efficacy and group norms

“…Previous research suggests that cooperative norms stem from strengthening group cohesion [40], and a number of studies demonstrate that developing and internalising cooperative social norms is essential for successfully managing shared resources [31,[41][42][43]. There is also evidence supporting the role of social norms in cooperation around shared environmental resources, including agricultural land [44][45][46][47]. Overall, it could be suggested that CNRM group identification would be related to stronger cooperation around resources shared by that group, and this link could be mediated by stronger sense of collective efficacy, higher trust, and cooperative norms.…”