Social norms and climate-friendly behavior of adolescents.
Journal
PloS one
ISSN: 1932-6203
Titre abrégé: PLoS One
Pays: United States
ID NLM: 101285081
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
2022
2022
Historique:
received:
08
12
2021
accepted:
28
03
2022
entrez:
27
4
2022
pubmed:
28
4
2022
medline:
30
4
2022
Statut:
epublish
Résumé
Adolescents are the decision-makers of the future, and as educational research shows, behaviors, habits, and attitudes established at young age strongly shape behavior in adulthood. Therefore, it is important to understand what factors shape young people's climate-relevant behavior. In this study, we examine how information about peer behavior affects adolescents' perception of prevailing social norms and own decision-making. Experimentally, we manipulated whether adolescents received information about other young people's (lack of) support for climate protection, operationalized as a donation to a CO2 offsetting scheme. We find that empirical expectations shifted for all age groups when the information revealed that peers donated nothing or only small amounts. Donation behavior and the normative assessment, however, changed only in the younger age groups. Our study illustrates the caution that must be exercised when others' behavior becomes visible or is deliberatively made salient in order to induce behavioral change, especially among young individuals.
Identifiants
pubmed: 35476845
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0266847
pii: PONE-D-21-38832
pmc: PMC9045838
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
e0266847Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
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