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Personal pro-environmental action has often been explained in terms of personal cost-benefit analyses and personal capabilities. However, given that only collectives and not single individuals can effectively address large-scale environmental crises, such as mass extinction of species, peoples’ pro-environmental motivation might emerge from their perceived involvement in agentic collectives, as proposed in the social identity model of pro-environmental action (SIMPEA). Collective cognition and motivation (e.g., ingroup identification, ingroup norms, collective efficacy, and group-based emotion) might drive identified group members’ nature protection intention and behavior both directly and indirectly by affecting personal factors (e.g., personal attitudes). We tested this in two related nationally representative surveys of N = 2065 Germans, measuring both personal and collective predictors as well as nature protection intentions and behavior on either the regional or the worldwide, global level. As hypothesized, blockwise regression analyses suggest that collective factors affect people’s conservation action both directly and indirectly. In addition, participants’ identification with all humanity moderated the relationship between collective factors and personal intention (and personal norms) to protect global nature. Overall, the results support propositions of the social identity model of pro-environmental action and highlight the importance of collective factors motivating citizens’ conservation action.

Energy citizenship is an emerging concept in policy and practice. Yet scientific theorising around energy citizenship is scarce, and rarely bundled in interdisciplinary discourse. In this article, we present an interdisciplinary definition of energy citizenship as people's rights to and responsibilities for a just and sustainable energy transition. Energy citizenship contains multiple aspects and allows for various approaches, of which we zoom into psychological, legal, and economic perspectives on the topic. From a psychological perspective, we construct an empirically testable sub-definition of energy citizenship based on previous psychological theorising. A legal perspective shows, exemplarily for the EU context, that energy citizenship qualifies as an EU citizenship because it consists of a bundle of rights and duties of the individual in the context of a committed, just and sustainable energy transition. An economic perspective reveals how energy citizenship already takes shape in current EU directives, and how this implies a new – more collectivist – economic model. Drawing on the three perspectives, we then sketch energy citizenship as an interdisciplinary research field. As a conclusion, we present a transdisciplinary definition of energy citizenship that is suitable for policy makers, energy communities and citizens, as it explicates a co-responsible process of people and governments.

Effectively fighting global warming requires large groups to engage in concerted action. In the present review article we aim to understand how human appraisals and responses to the challenge of climate change are shaped by social identities (i.e. people’s membership in specific social groups). We first describe the recent Social Identity Model of Pro-Environmental Action (SIMPEA), linking social identity theorizing to the study of climate action. Then, we review research on how collective climate action is driven by social identification, ingroup norms, group-based emotions, and collective efficacy beliefs. Finally, we focus on how very inclusive social identities (spatially or temporally), such as global identification, may provide a unique opportunity to advance interventions fostering people’s climate action.

Objectives: Social-cure research has shown that ingroup identification can be beneficial for personal health and well-being. Initial evidence for healthy participants suggests that this might be due to group membership providing a sense of personal control. In this research, we investigate this pathway for chronically ill patients, assuming that any ingroup (even patient identity) can serve as social cure by increasing control as long as the ingroup is perceived as agentic (i.e., effective). Design: We conducted six correlational field studies with patients suffering from different chronic conditions, e.g., cancer (Ntotal = 795). Methods: All participants were asked about one specific ingroup, e.g., their self-help group. Our main measures were ingroup identification, ingroup agency, personal control and well-being, as well as self-esteem and social support (both discussed as alternative mediators). We performed simple mediation and/or moderated mediation analyses for each study and across studies (merging Studies 2–6). Results: Overall, the impact of ingroup identification on personal well-being was uniquely mediated via personal control (Studies 1, 2, 3, 6) but, as expected, only for those perceiving their ingroup as highly agentic (Studies 4, 5, 6). Conclusions: Ingroup agency is a boundary condition for the control-based pathway of the social cure effect supporting the model of group-based control. This has practical implications for clinical interventions with chronically ill patients.

Terror management theory postulates that mortality salience (MS) increases the motivation to defend one’s cultural worldviews. How that motivation is expressed may depend on the social norm that is momentarily salient. Meta-analyses were conducted on studies that manipulated MS and social norm salience. Results based on 64 effect sizes for the hypothesized interaction between MS and norm salience revealed a small-to-medium effect of g = 0.34, 95% confidence interval [0.26, 0.41]. Bias-adjustment techniques suggested the presence of publication bias and/or the exploitation of researcher degrees of freedom and arrived at smaller effect size estimates for the hypothesized interaction, in several cases reducing the effect to nonsignificance (range gcorrected = −0.36 to 0.15). To increase confidence in the idea that MS and norm salience interact to influence behavior, preregistered, high-powered experiments using validated norm salience manipulations are necessary. Concomitantly, more specific theorizing is needed to identify reliable boundary conditions of the effect.

Blaming immigrants seems to be in part motivated by the need for control. However, three alternative explanations have been proposed as to why blaming bolsters feelings of control. First, blaming may restore a sense of an orderly world in which negative events can be attributed to a clear cause (causal attribution). Second, blaming others may strengthen in-group identities thereby facilitating group-based control (in-group identification). Finally, blaming low-status groups may enhance individuals' perceptions of dominance and superior status (hierarchy enhancement). Addressing these arguments, we conducted two survey experiments in the German context. In the first experiment, we examined the control-bolstering functions of causal attribution and in-group identification. Participants were primed with an economic crisis threat and then, given the opportunity to either blame out-groups (immigrants and managers), blame an abstract cause (globalization), or affirm their national identity. In the second experiment, we examine control enhancement in the context of political conflict and status hierarchies. Participants had the opportunity to either express prejudice toward low-status out-groups (immigrants and obese people) or indicate their opinion on the polarized issue of representation of the far-right. Both studies replicate earlier findings showing that anti-immigrant blaming and prejudice enhances the feelings of control. Neither mere causal attribution nor mere in-group identity salience produce similar control-bolstering effects. Instead, findings suggest that intergroup conflict and status differences benefit control the enhancement processes supporting accounts of both group-based control and social dominance. Findings are discussed with respect to social cohesion and the appeal of populist frames promoting antagonistic, unequal intergroup relations. The peer review history for this article (including the reviewer reports, their responses, and the editor’s decision letter) is available at https://publons.com/publon/10.1002/jts5.73.

Personal pro-environmental action has often been explained in terms of personal cost-benefit analyses and personal capabilities. However, given that only collectives and not single individuals can effectively address large-scale environmental crises, such as mass extinction of species, peoples’ pro-environmental motivation might emerge from their perceived involvement in agentic collectives, as proposed in the social identity model of pro-environmental action (SIMPEA). Collective cognition and motivation (e.g., ingroup identification, ingroup norms, collective efficacy, and group-based emotion) might drive identified group members’ nature protection intention and behavior both directly and indirectly by affecting personal factors (e.g., personal attitudes). We tested this in two related nationally representative surveys of N = 2065 Germans, measuring both personal and collective predictors as well as nature protection intentions and behavior on either the regional or the worldwide, global level. As hypothesized, blockwise regression analyses suggest that collective factors affect people’s conservation action both directly and indirectly. In addition, participants’ identification with all humanity moderated the relationship between collective factors and personal intention (and personal norms) to protect global nature. Overall, the results support propositions of the social identity model of pro-environmental action and highlight the importance of collective factors motivating citizens’ conservation action.

Research has shown that when control is threatened, people are more likely to turn to groups that are perceived as particularly agentic. However, the question of under what conditions control threat can mobilize individuals to join problem-focused, activist groups remains unresolved. In the present research, we propose that strength of involvement in group-based actions depends on the match between the domain of a threatened control goal and the domain in which the particular group acts. First, a match can occur when the level of control threat matches (vs. does not match) the domain in which a specific group is active. Second, a match can occur when a group operates in the same domain in which the threat to control occurs (vs. in a different domain). We tested these two cases in two countries, focusing on the context of ecological threat (i.e., the air pollution problem) and environmental activism. We did not find support for the first type of match in the data. We did find, however, partial support for another type of match. Specifically, low control participants wanted to join the group and act on its behalf only when there was a match between lack of control and the activist group domain. We interpret these results as initial evidence for the hypothesis that group-based actions among control-deprived individuals can be strategic and goal-driven.

In times of threat people often turn to social groups to fulfill various needs. In situations where this threat is related to people’s personal sense of control, the model of group-based control provides a social-identity-based account of why thinking and acting in terms of group membership should become more likely to occur. We set out to extend this perspective to the perception and processing of information about norms. Our initial hypothesis, the norm vigilance hypothesis, was that threat to people’s personal sense of control should induce a state where people become more vigilant for information about relevant social norms. This should become evident in more accurate recall of specifically this type of information under conditions of threat. In a series of four studies, we investigated this hypothesis with different paradigms, but were unable to find convincing evidence for the notion of norm vigilance in terms of enhanced accuracy. In a fifth study, we investigated an alternative hypothesis of motivated intergroup distortion of information about social norms after threat, but did not find convincing evidence for this mechanism either.

Understanding how psychological processes drive human energy choices is an urgent, and yet relatively under-investigated, need for contemporary society. A knowledge gap still persists on the links between psychological factors identified in earlier studies and people's behaviors in the energy domain. This research applies a meta-analytical procedure to assess the strength of the associations between five different classes of individual variables (i.e.,: attitudes, intentions, values, awareness, and emotions) and energy-saving behavioral intentions and behaviors (self-reported and actual). Based on a systematic review of studies published between 2007 and 2017, we estimate the average effect size of predictor-criterion relations, and we assess relevant moderators and publication bias, drawing on data obtained from 102 independent samples reported in 67 published studies (N= 59.948). Results from a series of five single meta-analyses reveal a pattern of significant positive associations between the selected psychological determinants and energy-saving indicators: associations between individual-level predictors and energy-saving outcomes are positive and moderate in size, ranging from large effects for emotions to small-moderate effects for pro-environmental values. Interestingly, moderation analysis reveals, among other things, that attitude-behavior links are not statistically significant when actual behavior is considered as an outcome. Implications for policy interventions are discussed.

This paper shows that interventions based on social norms and on increasing the visibility of people's decisions to others (“decision observability”) present promising pathways of generating public support for renewable energy development. In a laboratory experiment (n = 300), we show that social norms and decision observability increase support for renewable energy, even at a financial cost to oneself: When exposed to pro-environmental social norms, participants donated 35% more money to an existing renewable energy initiative than participants in the control condition (Cohen's d = 0.35). Participants whose decisions were observable to others donated 23% more compared to control (d = 0.23). And participants exposed to both treatments (their decisions being observed by others and learning about norms) donated 69% more compared to control (d = 0.67). In addition, our treatments had a positive effect on participants' post-decisional emotions of happiness and pride, which partly alleviates existing concerns about possible adverse side-effect of social influence interventions. Suggestions for policy makers and for future research in this area are presented.

Identity can improve our understanding of personal climate action, particularly when climate action becomes an expression of a person’s self. However, it is unclear which kind of self or identity is most relevant. Building on a comprehensive series of eight meta-analyses (using data from 188 published articles, N = 414,282 participants) this research systematically compares how strongly climate-friendly intentions and behaviors are associated with place identity, personal connectedness to nature, environmental self-identity (i.e., personal self-definition as a pro-environmentally acting person), and social identity (i.e., identification with social groups). Results suggest robust, medium-sized to strong links of both pro-environmental intentions and behaviors to people’s nature connectedness (r = 0.44/0.52), environmental self-identity (r = 0.62/0.56), and identification with groups considered to support climate-friendly behavior (r = 0.48/0.51), but markedly weaker effects for identification with groups which are unrelated to environmental topics (r = 0.30/0.15) and for place identity (r = 0.18/0.32). Implications for policy interventions and psychological theory are discussed.

Çalışmada 60 yazar bulunmaktadır. Bu yazarlardan sadece Bursa Uludağ Üniversitesi mensuplarının girişleri yapılmıştır. Self-continuity - the sense that one's past, present, and future are meaningfully connected - is considered a defining feature of personal identity. However, bases of self-continuity may depend on cultural beliefs about personhood. In multilevel analyses of data from 7287 adults from 55 cultural groups in 33 nations, we tested a new tripartite theoretical model of bases of self-continuity. As expected, perceptions of stability, sense of narrative, and associative links to one's past each contributed to predicting the extent to which people derived a sense of self-continuity from different aspects of their identities. Ways of constructing self-continuity were moderated by cultural and individual differences in mutable (vs. immutable) personhood beliefs - the belief that human attributes are malleable. Individuals with lower mutability beliefs based self-continuity more on stability; members of cultures where mutability beliefs were higher based self-continuity more on narrative. Bases of self-continuity were also moderated by cultural variation in contextualized (vs. decontextualized) personhood beliefs, indicating a link to cultural individualism-collectivism. Our results illustrate the cultural flexibility of the motive for self-continuity. UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) (RES-062-23-1300) Center for Intercultural and Indigenous Research (CIIR) (FONDAP/15110006) Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies (FONDAP/15130009) UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) (ES/F04223X/1) Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT) CONICYT FONDECYT (FONDECYT/1161371)

Vorrede | Die Besonderheit der menschlichen Art scheint auf zwei scheinbar entgegengesetzten Polen zu ruhen: Dem elaborierten Erkennen des Selbst und einer ausgepragten Sozialitat. Unsere kognitiven Fahigkeiten bedingen nicht nur ein komplexes Bewusstsein unser Selbst, sondern auch die ausgereifte Simulation eines moglichen Selbst, mit all ihren Auswirkungen auf selbstbezogene Bedurfnisse, Ziele, aber auch Enttauschungen (z. B. die existenzielle Erkenntnis der Begrenztheit personlicher Kontrolle). Gleichzeitig organisieren und definieren Menschen sich uber soziale Systeme hoher Komplexitat und Effektivitat. Insbesondere dieses hohe Mas an sozialer Koordination ermoglicht unserer Art Umweltkontrolle in beispiellosem Ausmas. Sesshaftigkeit, Ackerbau und Viehzucht sowie Staatenbildung haben dies noch beschleunigt.

Drawing upon a social identity approach, three studies focus on the elicitors of intergroup admiration by investigating the relationship between admiration for an outgroup and this outgroup’s prototypicality for a superordinate category. In Study 1 ( N = 314), we find empirical support for a positive association between prototypicality and admiration in cross-national survey data. In Study 2 ( N = 52), we provide experimental evidence for the relationship between admiration and prototypicality by manipulating different facets of prototypicality: admiration for an outgroup occurs only when the group is perceived as prototypical in relation to the ideal of the superordinate category, but not in relation to the category average. Study 3 further explores the importance of prototypicality for a superordinate category. We present an analysis of online comments to news articles ( N = 477) referring to positive regard of outgroups and highlight the role of prototypicality in these discussions. Overall, we contribute to research on admiration by showing that the elicitation of admiration is dependent on the social identities involved, providing an identity-situated analysis of this positive group-based emotion.

Variations in acquiescence and extremity pose substantial threats to the validity of cross-cultural research that relies on survey methods. Individual and cultural correlates of response styles when using 2 contrasting types of response mode were investigated, drawing on data from 55 cultural groups across 33 nations. Using 7 dimensions of self-other relatedness that have often been confounded within the broader distinction between independence and interdependence, our analysis yields more specific understandings of both individual- and culture-level variations in response style. When using a Likert-scale response format, acquiescence is strongest among individuals seeing themselves as similar to others, and where cultural models of selfhood favour harmony, similarity with others and receptiveness to influence. However, when using Schwartz's (2007) portrait-comparison response procedure, acquiescence is strongest among individuals seeing themselves as self-reliant but also connected to others, and where cultural models of selfhood favour self-reliance and self-consistency. Extreme responding varies less between the two types of response modes, and is most prevalent among individuals seeing themselves as self-reliant, and in cultures favouring self-reliance. As both types of response mode elicit distinctive styles of response, it remains important to estimate and control for style effects to ensure valid comparisons.

Contemplating the inevitability of one’s own death can deeply affect a person’s subjective sense of control, eliciting symbolic responses to restore control through cultural worldview defense. Re-search supporting this perspective has shown that reminders of one’s own death (i.e., uncontrol-lable death) can increase worldview defense, whereas self-determined dying (i.e., controllable death) does not (Fritsche, Jonas, & Fankh&#228nel, 2008). To date, all supportive evidence comes from the German culture and it remains unclear whether this effect can be replicated in non-German cultures. We conducted two studies to investigate the cross-cultural validity of this effect and rep-licated the effect in both a highly individualistic culture (i.e., the United States) and a highly collec-tivistic culture (i.e., China). The increased ingroup identification observed after reminders of un-controllable death supports the model of group-based control.

Large-scale environmental crises are genuinely collective phenomena: they usually result from collective, rather than personal, behavior and how they are cognitively represented and appraised is determined by collectively shared interpretations (e.g., differing across ideological groups) and based on concern for collectives (e.g., humankind, future generations) rather than for individuals. Nevertheless, pro-environmental action has been primarily investigated as a personal decision-making process. We complement this research with a social identity perspective on pro-environmental action. Social identity is the human capacity to define the self in terms of "We" instead of "I," enabling people to think and act as collectives, which should be crucial given personal insufficiency to appraise and effectively respond to environmental crises. We propose a Social Identity Model of Pro-Environmental Action (SIMPEA) of how social identity processes affect both appraisal of and behavioral responses to large-scale environmental crises. We review related and pertinent research providing initial evidence for the role of 4 social identity processes hypothesized in SIMPEA. Specifically, we propose that ingroup identification, ingroup norms and goals, and collective efficacy determine environmental appraisals as well as both private and public sphere environmental action. These processes are driven by personal and collective emotions and motivations that arise from environmental appraisal and operate on both a deliberate and automatic processing level. Finally, we discuss SIMPEA's implications for the research agenda in environmental and social psychology and for interventions fostering pro-environmental action. (PsycINFO Database Record

Economic threat (e.g., low or precarious socio-economic status) motivates social psychological responses to restore or maintain a sense of control and self-esteem, thwarted under conditions of personal or collective economic crisis. We review recent research showing that these processes elicit personal or collective attitudes and action tendencies that may either contribute to alleviate the source of the threat (e.g., collective action toward equality) or to be merely palliative (e.g., displaced intergroup conflict, ethnic prejudice). Further research should focus more on testing the motivational processes underlying the effects of economic threat.

We discuss prior findings that enhancing perceptions of collective efficacy encourages pro-environmental behavior. We suggest that collective efficacy manipulations affect pro-environmental intentions through increasing both collective and self-efficacy. Four experiments conducted in Germany and Australia demonstrated that collective efficacy manipulations can increase pro-environmental intentions by increasing the perception that one's group—and, through this, the self—is capable of effecting change. We also provide evidence that collective efficacy manipulations only work when they simultaneously raise self-efficacy. Our findings contribute to the environmental literature by showing the mechanisms through which group efficacy appeals work. Our findings also support theorizing on group-based control by showing that personal control can be derived from group sources.

Markus and Kitayama's (1991) theory of independent and interdependent self-construals had a major influence on social, personality, and developmental psychology by highlighting the role of culture in psychological processes. However, research has relied excessively on contrasts between North American and East Asian samples, and commonly used self-report measures of independence and interdependence frequently fail to show predicted cultural differences. We revisited the conceptualization and measurement of independent and interdependent self-construals in 2 large-scale multinational surveys, using improved methods for cross-cultural research. We developed (Study 1: N = 2924 students in 16 nations) and validated across cultures (Study 2: N = 7279 adults from 55 cultural groups in 33 nations) a new 7-dimensional model of self-reported ways of being independent or interdependent. Patterns of global variation support some of Markus and Kitayama's predictions, but a simple contrast between independence and interdependence does not adequately capture the diverse models of selfhood that prevail in different world regions. Cultural groups emphasize different ways of being both independent and interdependent, depending on individualism-collectivism, national socioeconomic development, and religious heritage. Our 7-dimensional model will allow future researchers to test more accurately the implications of cultural models of selfhood for psychological processes in diverse ecocultural contexts. UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) / Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) - RES-062-23-1300 - ES/G015074/1 Interdisciplinary Center for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies: COES - FONDAP/15130009 UK Research & Innovation (UKRI)/Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) - ES/F04223X/1 - ES/F04223X/1

The role of social identity variables for predicting environmental decisions may often be underdetected by psychological lay people. Applying this to the acceptance of electric vehicles (EVs) in Germany we investigated whether social norms and collective efficacy predict EV acceptance and what psychological laypersons who are either EV experts or EV non-experts think predicts EV acceptance. In preliminary interview studies we explored the beliefs of EV experts and EV non-experts. In a survey study, we then tested whether cost-related advantages and disadvantages were predictive of EV acceptance and whether norms and collective efficacy have independent effects even when controlling for cost-related factors and demographic variables. RESULTS suggest that both EV experts and EV non-experts considered cost-related factors as much more important than social identity processes. However, hierarchical regression analyses of the survey data showed that norms and collective efficacy have equal or even stronger effects on acceptance than cost-related factors. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. Language: en

Previous research has shown that ingroup norms influence intentions to engage in pro-environmental behavior, most notably for individuals highly identified with a group. However, intriguingly, identification may itself lead people to exaggerate descriptive pro-environmental ingroup norms to enhance positive distinctiveness of their ingroup. We investigated this possibility in two studies together with the assumption that perceived norms would mediate the effects of identification on intentions to engage in pro-environmental behavior. The results support our assumptions and show that high identifiers perceived their ingroup be more eco-friendly, which in turn increased respondents’ intentions to behave in a pro-environmental manner. We discuss the implications of this collective self-fulfilling prophecy for social identity theorizing and the prediction of pro-environmental behavior.

Existential threat, which terror-management theory suggests is associated with greater psychological distance from nature and increased concern for the self, may erode human motivation to protect the natural environment. Environmentally relevant motivations and concerns include desires to protect humans (anthropocentric motivation and egoistic concern) and nature (biocentric motivation and biospheric concern). Experimentally induced mortality salience decreased biocentric but not anthropocentric motivation to protect the environment (Studies 1 and 2) as well as biospheric but not egoistic environmental concern (Study 2). However, moderator effects also suggest how environmentally protective motivations can be sustained despite existential threat. If people conceive of proenvironmental action as serving humans or if it relates to people’s identities, the malicious effects of existential threat on proenvironmental motivation can be eliminated.

When their sense of personal control is threatened people try to restore perceived control through the social self. We propose that it is the perceived agency of ingroups that provides the self with a sense of control. In three experiments, we for the first time tested the hypothesis that threat to personal control increases the attractiveness of being part or joining those groups that are perceived as coherent entities engaging in coordinated group goal pursuit (agentic groups) but not of those groups whose agency is perceived to be low. Consistent with this hypothesis we found in Study 1 (N = 93) that threat to personal control increased ingroup identification only with task groups, but not with less agentic types of ingroups that were made salient simultaneously. Furthermore, personal control threat increased a sense of collective control and support within the task group, mediated through task-group identification (indirect effects). Turning to groups people are not (yet) part of, Study 2 (N = 47) showed that personal control threat increased relative attractiveness ratings of small groups as possible future ingroups only when the relative agency of small groups was perceived to be high. Perceived group homogeneity or social power did not moderate the effect. Study 3 (N = 78) replicated the moderating role of perceived group agency for attractiveness ratings of entitative groups, whereas perceived group status did not moderate the effect. These findings extend previous research on group-based control, showing that perceived agency accounts for group-based responses to threatened control.

Beliefs about personhood are understood to be a defining feature of individualism-collectivism (I-C), but they have been insufficiently explored, given the emphasis of research on values and self-construals. We propose the construct of contextualism, referring to beliefs about the importance of context in understanding people, as a facet of cultural collectivism. A brief measure was developed and refined across 19 nations (Study 1: N = 5,241), showing good psychometric properties for cross-cultural use and correlating well at the nation level with other supposed facets and indicators of I-C. In Study 2 (N = 8,652), nation-level contextualism predicted ingroup favoritism, corruption, and differential trust of ingroup and outgroup members, while controlling for other facets of I-C, across 35 nations. We conclude that contextualism is an important part of cultural collectivism. This highlights the importance of beliefs alongside values and self-representations and contributes to a wider understanding of cultural processes. © The Author(s) 2013.