Conflict of cooperation and pro-environmental behavior: Social and temporal determinants of choice behavior

• Applicant: Professor Benjamin E. Hilbig, Ph.D., since 4/2022
• Subject Area: Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 454156428

Pro-environmental behavior plays a pivotal role in tackling pressing global challenges such as climate change. Many situations in which pro-environmental behavior can be shown pose a social dilemma. In social dilemmas, each involved individual faces two conflicts, namely a social conflict between one’s own and the collective interest and a temporal conflict between short-term and long-term benefits. The own (short-term) interest can be maximized through selfish behavior, whereas the (long-term) collective interest can be maximized through cooperation. As pro-environmental behavior is also of collective interest and has long-term benefits, previous research on social dilemmas using economic games often conceptualized it as being in line with cooperation. However, this is not always the case in reality, as pro-environmental behavior can also be in conflict with cooperation. Specifically, cooperation might benefit the members of the group one is cooperation with, however, the result might be detrimental for the environment, thus posing negative externalities on all humans. Until now, these situations have rarely been investigated.Therefore, the main aim of this project is the investigation of choice situations, in which individuals have to decide between cooperation with their group and pro-environmental behavior. For this, the Greater Good Game will be used a social dilemma, which has been developed to measure behavior in situations, in which individuals have to decide between selfish, cooperative, and pro-environmental behavior. As a consequence, cooperation and pro-environmental behavior are mutually exclusive or even in conflict in the Greater Good Game. Three experimental blocks with a total of 14 studies investigate different factors influencing the decision behavior in the Greater Good Game. Specifically, the main to-be-investigated construct is the salience of different choice options. In experimental block A, the theoretical framework will be investigated and tested, whether the salience of different choice options can be heightened through established person and situation factors and, in turn, actually affects choice behavior. Subsequently, experimental blocks B and C will investigate how salience can have an effect on choice behavior via different social (B) and temporal (C) determinants. This project adds to the understanding of daily situations, which have been rarely investigated so far but are of high relevance for current societal problems.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Ehemalige Antragstellerin: Dr. Sina Klein, until 3/2022