Psychology of Sustainable Development PDF
Preview Psychology of Sustainable Development
PSYCHOLOGY OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT PSYCHOLOGY OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT edited by Peter Schmuck Technische Universitat Berlin Berlin Wesley P. Schultz California State University San Marcos, California SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, LLC ISBN 978-1-4613-5342-3 ISBN 978-1-4615-0995-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4615-0995-0 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Copyright © 2002 by Springer Science+Business Media New York Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2002 Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover Ist edition 2002 AII rights reserved. No part ofthis work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilm ing, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed an acid-free pap er. The Publisher ojjers discounts on this book jor course use and bulk purchases. For jurther injormation, send email to<[email protected]> . CONTENTS LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS VII PREFACE' IX WHAT IS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT; 1 AND HOW DO WE GET THERE? Chapter 1. Sustainable Development as a Challenge for 3 Psychology Peter Schmuck & P. Wesley Schultz Chapter 2. The Next Revolution: Sustainability 19 Doug McKenzie-Mohr Chapter 3. Social Dilemmas and Sustainability: Promoting 37 Peoples' Motivation to "Cooperate With the Future" Richard Osbaldiston & Kennon M Sheldon INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN 59 SUSTAINABLE BEHAVIOR Chapter 4. Inclusion With Nature: The Psychology of 61 Human-Nature Relations P. Wesley Schultz Chapter 5. (En)Gendering Sustainable Development 79 Deborah Du Nann Winter Chapter 6. Sustainable Development and Emotions 97 Elisabeth Kals & Jiirgen Maes Chapter 7. Why do People Act in Sustainable Ways? Results 123 of an Empirical Survey of Lifestyle Pioneers Lars Degenhardt VI CULTURE AND SUSTAINABILITY 149 Chapter 8. Self, Culture, and Sustainable Development 151 Valdiney V. Gouveia Chapter 9. Partnerships for Sustainability: Psychology for Ecology 175 Peter H Cock Chapter 10. Sustainable Wildlife Utilization in Africa: A Contest 197 Between Scientific Understanding and Human Nature Johan T. du Toit Chapter 11. Environmental Sustainability by Sociocognitive 209 Deceleration of Population Growth Albert Bandura EXEMPLARY PROJECTS IN SUSTAINABLE 239 DEVELOPMENT Chapter 12. Motivating Collective Action: Converting to 241 Sustainable Energy Sources in a German Community Swantje Eigner & Peter Schmuck Chapter 13. Which Kind of Sustainability for a Social 257 Environmental Psychology? Bernardo Jimenez-Dominguez Chapter 14. Using Organized Consumer Action to Foster 277 S ustainability Monroe Friedman CONCLUSION 299 Chapter 15. Summarizing Sustainability Issues and Research 301 Approaches Stuart Oskamp SUBJECT INDEX 325 LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Bandnra, Albert, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2130, USA [email protected] Cock, Peter, Graduate School of Environmental Science, Monash University, Vic 3800, AUSTRALIA [email protected] Degenhardt, Lars, University Gottingen, Interdisciplinary Center for Sustainable Development, Goldschmidtstr. 1, 37077 Gottingen, GERMANY [email protected] du Toit, Johan T., Mammal Research Institute, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0002, SOUTH AFRICA jtdutoit~oology. up.ac.za Eigner, Swantje, University Gottingen, Interdisciplinary Center for Sustainable Development, Goldschmidtstr. 1, 37077 Gottingen, GERMANY [email protected] Friedman, Monroe, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI 48197, USA psyJ [email protected] Gouveia, Valdiney V., Universidade Federal da Paraiba, CCHLA, Departamento de Psicologia, 58059-900 Joao Pessoa, PB, BRASIL vvgouve [email protected]. br Jimenez-Dominguez, Bernardo, Urban. Studies Center (CEUR) of the University of Guadalajara., Garibaldi 1859, CP 44650, Guadalajara, MEXICO [email protected] Kals, Elisabeth, University of Trier, Fachbereich 1 - Psychologie, 54286 Trier, GERMANY [email protected] Maes, Jiirgen, University of Trier, Fachbereich 1 - Psychologie, 54286 Trier, GERMANY [email protected] VIII McKenzie-Mohr, Doug, St. Thomas University, Fredericton, N.B. E3B 5G3, CANADA [email protected] Osbaldiston, Richard, Department of Psychological Sciences, McAlester Hall, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA [email protected] Oskamp, Stuart, School of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA 91711, USA stuart. [email protected] Pol, Enric, University of Barcelona, Department of Social Psychology, P. Vall d'Hebron 171,08035 Barcelona, SPAIN [email protected] Schmuck, Peter, Technical University Berlin, Department of Psychology, Franklinstr. 28, FR 3-8, 10587 Berlin, GERMANY [email protected] Schultz, Wesley, Department of Psychology, California State University, San Marcos, CA 92096, USA [email protected] Sheldon, Ken, Department of Psychological Sciences, McAlester Hall, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA [email protected] Winter, Deborah Du Nann, Department of Psychology, Whitman College, Walla Walla, Wa. 99362, USA [email protected] PREFACE The notion of expanding the model of occidental development to the entire planet is not possible. There simply are not enough natural resources on planet earth to allow it. For this reason, taking the steps necessary to move toward sustainable development is not one option among many, but rather it is the only option. The chapters in this book offer a range of perspectives about the psychological foundations and paths to sustainability. What emerges from these chapters is a resounding conclusion that the dominant model of growth, consumption, and waste cannot continue and that alternatives are possible. From traditional psychological research, we know (or we believe that we know) a great deal about how to influence people's behavior. However, as we have forgotten all too many times before, the environment (natural, technological, available resources, and a favorable social climate) is an important factor that must be considered in motivating behavior. Knowledge is centered in people's behavior as individuals, rather than in the manager and policy makers' responsibilities, as Stern and Oskamp emphasized in their chapter in the Handbook ofE nvironmental Psychology. The dominant model of "well meaning environmental managers" is centered on the rationality of the human being. Policies are based on the assumption that it is enough to give information. Managers often expect changes in the attitudes and behavior of the individuals to result from disseminated information. From psychology we know that human beings like to reason, but are not always rational. This implies that emotions and affect playa major role in behavior, as Kals and Maes outline in their chapter. Another important factor often forgotten is social influence. If we do not provide the right environment and resources, but allow it all to depend on the good will of the citizens, we will be asking them to go above and beyond the call of duty. This will increase the risk overburdening them, which may inhibit their progress and cause "ecofatigue." As Friedman argues in his chapter, organized consumer action may be undertaken to serve sustainability if its management is well founded on cognitive and motivational knowledge. Social cohesion, the perception of equality, and of the inter and i~tra generation solidarity are essential elements in the advance toward sustainability, as we have shown in the project "City-Identity-Sustainability" which was initiated in 1996, and discussed in this volume by Jimenez. Moreover, after some "minimals of survival" are reached, social cohesion is more important than the economic level of a community. In our society, there are more individualized forces at work than forces of cohesion, which would bring about what Castells calls "individual strategies of survival." In the last decades, environmentalism has been progressively emptied of its initial ideological and social commitment. It remains more and more as a technical problem that can be solved with adequate technology. For McKenzie- x Mohr (in this volume) "the Sustainability Revolution" is the third big human revolution. It reposes the environmental matter on the social dimensions of equity and solidarity. For me, it's a "revolution from the top", as I explain in the new Handbook of Environmental Psychology (2002). But perhaps we can talk about it better as a "Sandwich Revolution." "Sandwich Revolution" because it is formally promoted from the top of the society by socially aware institutions. They promulgate declarations of good principles, which are turned into laws - laws that afterward are not always fully applied. From the bottom, it is promoted by the new social movements like ecologists who have been able to make their voices heard through the masses ofNGO's. In the middle there is the citizen, more or less concerned with his/her own survival, in some cases with the non-solidarity maintenance of a good quality of life already attained (understood more as level of life than as a personal, social or ecological balance). In this book, suggestions for the abatement of soaring population growth are contributed by Bandura, whereas lifestyles and sustainability are discussed in the chapter by Degenhardt. Osbaldiston and Sheldon offer definitions of sustainabilityand recommendations for policy-makers, taken from social dilemma experiments -recommendations that have to take into account the fact that the building environment has an strong impact on implicit connections that individuals make between self and nature, as outlined by Schultz. This present volume not only attends to the individual determining factors of behavior, but it also adopts a vision and a level of analysis that transcends the individual, reaching the social and structural levels of society. For instance, Gouveia discusses some current cultural indicators of sustainability and their relationship with values; Cock outlines the role of ecopsychology in North-South relations and du Toit analyzes specificities of rural Africa. The structural analyses also include the gendered dimension of economic development, as Winter outlines in her chapter. The sustainability problem is a result of individual and collective human behavior. It cannot be treated merely as an economic or technological problem, without considering the mechanisms that intervene on the behavioral side of it. Eigner and Schmuck combine both aspects in their reported approach to introduce renewable energy sources. Oskamp contributes a global vision in the concluding chapter. Peter Schmuck's and Wesley Schultz's initiative to publish this book, putting together a range of psychological approaches, experiences and contributions from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Mexico, United States, and South Africa, is a very good and welcomed initiative to help move us toward sustainable development. Enric Pol, Barcelona, 2002 PART ONE WHAT IS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT; AND HOW DO WE GET THERE?
The list of books you might like
