Perceived Resource Scarcity and Environmental Behaviors – How Do They Relate?

• In Event: Strategies to Promote Conservation

Abstract

Sustainability challenges largely have to do with valuing past, present and future resources. History is full of examples of humans and societies that threat, react to changes in, and preserve resources they depend on. However, there is surprisingly little research on behavioral reactions to decreasing or increasing resource levels in the field of environmental studies. This study aims to investigate the impact of individual experience-based subjective evaluations of different types of resources on environmental behavior, with the hypothesis that this will be mediated by willingness to cooperate in social dilemma situations. The hypothesis is based on an understanding of environmental behavior as a collective action problem based in a social dilemma. We predict that scarcity can lead to both cooperation and defection depending on whether cooperation is expected to take place with an “in-group” (cooperation) or an “out-group” (defection). This link is investigated in a survey to the Swedish public, which also controls for other common explanations to environmental attitudes and behavior, such as perceived behavioral control, habits and trust.

Author

• Mathias Zannakis, University West