Search

To inform spatial planning promoting low-carbon travel and well-being, we investigate the potential for experiential diversity by active travel across different residential contexts. We use spatiotemporal tracking and experience data from the Gävle city-region, Sweden, generated by 165 participants over the course of 15 months. Findings reveal a discrepancy between typical travel distances to locations of positive experiences (1.5–5 km) and the distances at which active travel dominates (up to 1.5 km). This discrepancy largely persists across urban, suburban, and peripheral contexts, with urban dwellers travelling further for nature experiences, whereas peripheral dwellers travel further for urbanicity experiences. These results illustrate the importance of spatial scale for promoting diverse positive experiences by active travel, regardless of residential context. Planning strategies include enhancing environmental diversity close to people’s homes and providing infrastructure that promotes switching from motorised to active travel for trips of a few kilometres.

Human behavior is the cause of most environmental challenges we face today, and widespread behavioral change is urgently needed across actors and scales. Even though the public perception of the current ecological crisis has changed drastically in recent decades, a corresponding shift in behavior is lacking — unfortunately, mere belief in climate change is a poor predictor of taking action. In light of this knowledge-action gap, this thesis looks at behavior change from a psychological perspective and aims to explore how insights from the behavioral sciences can help understand and promote sustainable behavior change. This thesis mainly focuses on developing and testing interventions to promote pro-environmental behaviors. It studies the effectiveness of information-based nudges, manipulation of the physical environment, and the interaction between internal motivation to act and the immediate decision context. The thesis also explores the automatic and habitual aspects of behavior change. To this end, five studies were conducted. Four empirical studies in which interventions to promote pro-environmental behaviors were designed and implemented in different natural contexts. All interventions were evaluated using observed behavior and a mix of experimental designs, from lab experiments to natural field experiments. A fifth argument-driven conceptual paper was also written. Overall, the result from the studies highlights the potential (and complexity) of applying behavioral insights in intervention design: they indicate that the effect can be long-lasting and that relatively small changes in spatial layouts can produce significant behavior change. The results especially showcase the importance of the immediate decision context, and that if conditions are right, manipulating the physical environment can be a powerful, and potentially underutilized, tool to steer behavior. Notably, findings from a lab experiment showed that even when there are strong self-reported intent, Människans beteende orsakar de flesta miljöutmaningar som vi står inför idag, vilken innebär att vi behöver se omfattande beteendeförändringar inom en nära framtid. Även fast kunskapen och den allmänna uppfattningen om den ekologiska kris vi nu befinner oss i har förändrats drastiskt under de senaste decennierna, saknas en motsvarande förändring i beteende – tyvärr är associationen mellan kunskap och ändrat beteende väldigt svag. I ljuset av det gapet, mellan kunskap och handling, utforskar denna avhandling beteendeförändringar ur ett psykologiskt perspektiv. Forskningen som presenteras här syftar till att undersöka hur insikter från beteendevetenskapen kan hjälpa oss att förstå och främja hållbara beteendeförändringar. Avhandlingen fokuserar främst på att utveckla och testa olika interventioner baserade på psykologiska insikter. Här studeras effektiviteten av informationsbaserade ”nudges”, förändringar i den fysiska miljön och interaktionen mellan inre motivation och den direkta omgivningen. Även de automatiska och vanemässiga aspekterna av beteendeförändringar utforskas. Fem studier genomfördes: i fyra empiriska studier utformades och implementerades interventioner för att främja miljövänliga beteenden i olika miljöer, dessa utvärderades med hjälp av olika experimentella designer: från laboratorieexperiment till naturliga fältexperiment, och effekten uppskattades med hjälp av observerat beteende. En femte konceptuell argumentdriven artikel skrevs också. Överlag belyser resultatet potentialen (men även komplexiteten) i att tillämpa insikter från beteendevetenskapen i designprocessen av olika interventioner: de visar att effekten kan vara långvarig och att relativt små ingripanden kan resultera i betydande beteendeförändring. Resultaten understryker även vikten av den omedelbara fysiska miljön, och att vid rätt förutsättningar – så kan manipulering av den fysiska miljön vara ett kraftfullt, och potentiellt underutnyttjat, verktyg för att styra beteenden mot hållbara

We reply to ‘A relational turn for sustainability science?’ by West et al. We commend West et al. for their salient comments about the relational turn. Yet the article leaves us wondering about the methodological challenges and pragmatics of relational thinking. The authors omitted important tensions in relational thinking discussion about how to assess dynamic socio-ecological systems, and how to lever change for sustainability. Whilst relational thinking is helpful, researchers inevitably need to make strategic choices about where to divide system components if the goal is to systematically assess relations and to promote transformations toward sustainability. Where and how to ‘apply the knife’ inevitably is informed by one’s ontological starting point (view of reality) and personal epistemological beliefs. We outline three questions to be answered in order to more firmly establish relational thinking in sustainability science: If systems and processes are continually unfolding, how do we identify where to lever change for sustainability? In relational thinking, can we explain human action outside of the shared ‘activity of experiencing’? If society and ecology is co-constituted, how can relational approaches be used to understand unfolding and cascading effects in complex systems? We conclude with future directions for a solutions-oriented sustainability science agenda.

Promoting pro-environmental behaviour amongst urban dwellers is one of today's greatest sustainability challenges. The aim of this study is to test whether an information intervention, designed based on theories from environmental psychology and behavioural economics, can be effective in promoting recycling of food waste in an urban area. To this end we developed and evaluated an information leaflet, mainly guided by insights from nudging and community-based social marketing. The effect of the intervention was estimated through a natural field experiment in Hökarängen, a suburb of Stockholm city, Sweden, and was evaluated using a difference-in-difference analysis. The results indicate a statistically significant increase in food waste recycled compared to a control group in the research area. The data analysed was on the weight of food waste collected from sorting stations in the research area, and the collection period stretched for almost 2 years, allowing us to study the short- and long term effects of the intervention. Although the immediate positive effect of the leaflet seems to have attenuated over time, results show that there was a significant difference between the control and the treatment group, even 8 months after the leaflet was distributed. Insights from this study can be used to guide development of similar pro-environmental behaviour interventions for other urban areas in Sweden and abroad, improving chances of reaching environmental policy goals., QC 20180326

QC 20170620, ARTs project

Uppsatsen syftar till att genom en semantisk neutralisering och skapande av mer socialt accepterade påståenden i Pratto et al. (1994) social dominansorientering (SDO) skala, utveckla skalan för att minimera risken för önskvärda svar. Detta då svarsspridningen i originalskalan ofta drabbas av golveffekter. Samtliga items i originalskalan omformulerades för att bli semantiskt neutrala. Sammantaget deltog 127 studenter vid Lunds Universitet i studien. Den neutraliserade skalan jämfördes med originalskalan, tre olika fördomsskalor och en skala för social önskvärdhet. Resultaten visade att den neutraliserade skalan hade en hög intern konsistens, en stark positiv korrelation med originalskalan samt ett medelvärde som var signifikant mer mot mitten av skalan. Skalan predicerade även fördomar och korrelerade signifikant med samtliga fördomsskalor. Däremot predicerade originalskalan fördomar lite bättre än den neutraliserade skalan och den interna konsistensen var högre i originalskalan. Det fanns inget signifikant samband mellan social önskvärdhet och SDO-skalorna.

Food production is the human activity with the greatest impact on the earth systems and accounts for about a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing consumption of certain meat (e.g., beef, pork and lamb) and replacing it with proteins with less environmental impact has been highlighted as one of the greatest leverage points to achieve a more sustainable food system. In this study, we evaluate a nudge intervention at a medium-sized grocery store designed to reduce purchases of meat in favor of fish with a lower environmental impact. We also measure other relevant internal and external factors influencing this choice; such as values, attitudes, habits, demographics and price. To explore how the nudge influenced shopping decisions we designed a field experiment in the store, and measured the effect by collecting data on sales of fish (85 215 items sold over 143 days). To further evaluate the nudge and to explore how the other factors influence the choice of protein we collected data from a selected sample of customers (N=200). The results showed no evidence for the effectiveness of the nudge intervention, instead, we found that values, habits, attitudes and price all significantly influenced this protein choice. Our results highlight the complexity of shopping decisions and how nudge interventions are not always easy to implement. We discuss the implications of these findings, possible improvements to the nudge and how interventions that aim to steer similar shopping decisions might need to account for habit-breaking to be effective.