Nanne Kukkonen
Personal opportunity costs influence decisions to act environmentally
Why don't even the most environmentally conscious of us act pro-environmentally every time they have the chance? Our research shows that more convenient and self-serving options often out-compete these actions and dominate our decision making.
Role: Lead Researcher
Methods: Computerized online experiment, online survey administration, A/B Testing
Tools: PsychoPy (Python), university participant pool, R
Data Collection
I coded a computerized effort decision making experiment in PsychoPy, which was piloted and run on an online university research platform (N = 115 & N = 255). The participants faced a series of decisions between completing a task for personal or pro-environmental charity cash bonus, with orthogonally contrasted reward and demand levels associated with each option.
After the main experiment, questionnaires measuring pro-environmental propensity (General Ecological Behavior Scale; Kaiser & Wilson, 2004; the New Environmental Paradigm, Dunlap et al., 2000) and values (The Value Orientation Scale; De Groot & Steg, 2007) were administered.
Data Analysis & Synthesis
Decision-making data was fitted with a logistic mixed-effects regression model in R, with predictor variables of reward and demand, and an outcome variable of pro-environmental choice (TRUE/FALSE).
Multiple questionnaire results were incorporated in the models to explore the influence of inter-individual differences in pro-environmental propensity and values on the cost-benefit analysis underlying pro-environmental decision making.
Results & Insights
In general, participants were less likely to choose to complete a task for a pro-environmental cause than for themselves, with a fifth of the participants never choosing the pro-environmental option. However, pro-environmental choices were more likely when the self-benefiting option was less appealing, either by being associated with a lower reward or higher demand. This relates to the concept of the opportunity cost: the value of a behavior is affected by the value of the competing options in the environment. In this case, the opportunity cost of pro-environmental behavior was operationalized explicitly as the self-benefiting option. The opportunity cost of pro-environmental behavior thus decreases with the overall value of the alternative, self-benefiting behavior.
Self-reported higher pro-environmental propensity and values were associated with an increased likelihood of pro-environmental decisions in general. More specifically, pro-environmental propensity seems to act as a buffer against the influence of costs (opportunity and behavioral) on pro-environmental decision making.
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Pro-environmental decisions are more likely when self-benefiting alternative is less appealing (low opportunity cost)
- People who self-report higher pro-environmental propensity are less influenced by high behavioral costs of pro-environmental behavior
- By decreasing the appeal of alternative behaviors, pro-environmental behavior can be increased via reduction of opportunity costs
GEB measures the self-reported pro-environmental propensity. In general, these measures have not been good at predicting the likelihood of "real life" pro-environmental behaviors. Here, higher self-reported pro-environmental propensity has the strongest association with the likelihood of making a pro-environmental choice, when it is associated with higher demand.
Due to a university policy, the cash bonuses accumulated for a pro-environmental cause could not be donated by us, and the whole bonus was paid to participants in the end. They were asked whether they would donate the money or not. Pro-environmental propensity (real: top panel on the left; self-reported: top panel middle and right) was linked to reports of independent donation, as was biospheric and altruistic value orientation. Only egoistic value orientation was associated with a reversed relationship, with a higher value score associated with higher likelihood of reporting "will not donate".