In this week’s SED colloquium, Ulf Hahnel, Head of the Department of Psychology’s Division “Psychology of Sustainability and Behavior Change”, will give a presentation entitled “A multidimensional perspective on sustainability and behavior change” in which he will give an overview of recent research aiming to advance knowledge about the cognitive mechanisms underlying judgment and decision making in the energy and climate domain.

A multidimensional perspective on sustainability and behavior change

This research covers, among others, investment decisions in renewable energy technology and trading decision strategies in innovative peer-to-peer energy markets. Moreover, the talk will cover recent interdisciplinary research illustrating how experimental data from psychological research on decision making preferences can be integrated into energy modelling to analyze the impact of human decision making on the system level. Finally, Ulf will give an outlook of the new group “Psychology of Sustainability and Behavior Change” and its vision to provide evidence-based means to contribute to the transition towards net-zero emissions around the world.

Gabrielle Wong-Parodi, Assistant Professor, Earth System Science, University of Stanford, will give a virtual presentation in the Social, Economic, and Decision Psychology research seminar on Thursday 27 October (17:00-18:00, virtual).

Responses to global environmental change: Mitigation to adaptation

A growing number of people are experiencing the impacts from climate change from extreme wildfires and heat to intensify hurricanes. Understanding how experiences and sense making relate to decision making may provide insight into ways interventions can be designed to more effectively empower people to take steps to adapt to lessen impacts, or to address root causes. Dr Wong-Parodi will present recent work examining the relationships of negative personal experience with extreme weather events and attribution of that experience to climate change with pro-environmental attitudes, behaviors, and adaptation. She will also present work-in-progress that centers on a longitudinal study examining how the relationship of adaptation and risk perceptions regarding hurricanes in the U.S. Gulf Coast changes over time. These studies illustrate the importance of conducting research in context and provide ways forward for thinking about how to support efforts to mitigate climate change and to adapt to the changes already under way.

Don’t miss this week’s in-person presentation by Agnes Rosner, Scientific Associate SNF Ambizione, University of Zurich, in the Social, Economic, and Decision Psychology research seminar series (Thursday 20 October at 12:00).

Exemplar retrieval in preferential judgments

Research on inferential judgments from multiple cues suggests that judgments are influenced by the retrieval of past instances (exemplars) stored in memory. Yet, on the process level little evidence exists that would allow a similar conclusion for preferential judgments, where there is no objective criterion to which a judgment can be compared. This study aimed to test if exemplar retrieval may also play a role in preferential judgments. In Experiment 1, half of the participants judged how much they would like smoothies consisting of different ingredients (preference condition) and the other half judged how much another person would like the presented smoothies (inference condition). In Experiment 2, all participants engaged in preferential judgments, but with or without instructions to respond as consistently as possible. To trace memory retrieval, we recorded eye movements. Eye movements can be used to trace information search in memory, because when retrieving information, people look at spatial locations that have been associated with retrieval-relevant information but that are empty during judgment of new objects (“looking-at-nothing” behavior). The results show that people looked at exemplar locations in both inferential and preferential judgments, and both with and without instructions to respond as consistently as possible. The more they looked to the most similar exemplar location, the more closely related were test and training judgments of the respective exemplar. The results suggest that people may rely on previously encountered exemplars also in preferential judgments and highlight the usefulness of studying eye movements “to nothing” to better understand the role of memory in judgment.

Verena Tiefenbeck, Assistant Professor, Digital Transformation, Friedrich-Alexander University, will give a virtual presentation in the Social, Economic, and Decision Psychology research seminar on Thursday 13 October (12:00-13:00, virtual).

Does the end affect the means? Purpose-dependent effects of behavioral interventions in online grocery shopping

Behavioral interventions that make small, seemingly irrelevant changes to the choice architecture (also called “nudges”) have been applied in various domains, including financial, occupational, health- and sustainability-related decisions. Although the behavioral response to some nudges is substantial, the magnitude of the effects differs widely. Various studies have investigated the impact of individual and situational variables. Yet, one key variable that has not yet been systematically examined for its behavioral impact is the purpose pursued by the nudge (e.g., promoting healthy eating). To date, a direct, systematic analysis that exogenously and exclusively manipulates the nudge’s purpose, while holding all other factors constant, is missing. In this study, we analyze the results of a randomized controlled trial in the online grocery shopping context (n = 790). We investigate the effects of two different nudging interventions (food labels and salience reduction) and systematically manipulate the pursued purpose (health vs. sustainability vs. pro-profit vs. none communicated). While the effect of the food labels largely depends on the communicated purpose, the effect of the salience reduction unfolds independently of its purpose. These findings have serious implications: They provide empirical evidence that “strong” nudges that bypass individuals’ active information processing and reasoning can steer behavior in the intended direction of the nudge, irrespective of peoples’ preferences. Our findings call for careful consideration of the welfare effects of nudges implemented as instruments of public policy and underscore the need for regulation of nudges in the consumer domain.