Clarifying the degree and type of public good collective action problem posed by natural resource management challenges

Niemiec, Rebecca M.; McCaffrey, Sarah; Jones, Megan S.

doi:10.5751/es-11483-250130

Cited by 20 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 38 publications

(70 reference statements)

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“…These trends suggest the importance of social norms, influence, and cooperation in wildfire mitigation decisions. Future studies might test messaging that describes in more detail the collective action problem of addressing wildfire risk and how individuals can work together to improve resilience (Niemiec et al 2020;Howe et al 2021). Leveraging reputational concerns may be effective through interventions that make people's actions observable, or highlighting norms that many others are contributing to the public good of wildfire mitigation (Rand et al 2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

You vs. us: framing adaptation behavior in terms of private or social benefits

Flint

Cada²,

Champ

et al. 2022

Climatic Change

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Private actions to mitigate and adapt to climate change may have benefits to both the individual and society. In some cases, an individual may be motivated by appeals that highlight benefits to others, rather than to oneself. We test whether such prosocial framing influences information-seeking behavior to address wildfire risk among homeowners. In a field experiment across ten communities in western Colorado, property owners ( n = 2977) received a postcard from their local fire department highlighting the impact of risk mitigation to either “your property” ( private benefits ) or “our community” ( social benefits ). The postcard directed recipients to visit a personalized webpage on wildfire risk. Overall, 10.5% of property owners visited their personalized risk webpage. There was little difference in webpage visitation between those who received the social (11.3%) rather than the private (9.7%) benefits message ( χ 2 = 1.74, p = 0.19). However, response may depend on a property owner’s relationship to the community. Those who reside within the community (as opposed to out-of-town owners) or who were in an evacuation zone during a recent wildfire were more likely to visit their webpages after receiving the social benefits message. How homeowners view their contributions to shared risk and whether simple changes in messaging influence prosocial behavior can inform efforts to address climate-exacerbated hazards. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10584-022-03400-4.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

You vs. us: framing adaptation behavior in terms of private or social benefits

Flint

Cada²,

Champ

et al. 2022

Climatic Change

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“…We conceptualize collective environmental literacy as more than collective action; rather, we suggest that the term encapsulates action along with its various supporting structures and resources. Additionally, we employ the word ''literacy'' as it connotes learning, Niemiec et al (2020), Ostrom (1990Ostrom ( , 2000Ostrom ( , 2010, van Zomeren et al (2008) Power of the collective, synergy Antecedents/factors/frameworks of effective collective efforts Role of shared resources, including social capital and knowledge Issues of power dynamics Collective behavior Blumer (1971), Gordon (2019), Granovetter (1978), Park (1927), Smelser (2011Smelser ( /1962, Turner and Killian (1987) Collective efficacy Bandura (2000), Sampson et al (1997) intention, and the idea that knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors can be enhanced iteratively over time. By using ''literacy,'' we strive to highlight the efforts, often unseen, that lead to effective collective action in communities.…”

Section: Defining Collective Environmental Literacymentioning

confidence: 99%

Leveraging collective action and environmental literacy to address complex sustainability challenges

Ardoin

Bowers

Wheaton

2022

Ambio

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Developing and enhancing societal capacity to understand, debate elements of, and take actionable steps toward a sustainable future at a scale beyond the individual are critical when addressing sustainability challenges such as climate change, resource scarcity, biodiversity loss, and zoonotic disease. Although mounting evidence exists for how to facilitate individual action to address sustainability challenges, there is less understanding of how to foster collective action in this realm. To support research and practice promoting collective action to address sustainability issues, we define the term “collective environmental literacy” by delineating four key potent aspects: scale, dynamic processes, shared resources, and synergy. Building on existing collective constructs and thought, we highlight areas where researchers, practitioners, and policymakers can support individuals and communities as they come together to identify, develop, and implement solutions to wicked problems. We close by discussing limitations of this work and future directions in studying collective environmental literacy.

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“…Thus, altering social norms through a scaled‐up block leader approach may be particularly important for this context (van Heezik et al., 2012 ). Further, encouraging widespread action through the block leader approach is important because the protection of native biodiversity in urban areas may pose a collective action problem, given that there are likely thresholds in how much of a community must replace lawn with native plants for impacts to be seen to birds, insects, and other urban wildlife (Niemiec et al., 2020a ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Efficacy‐based and normative interventions for facilitating the diffusion of conservation behavior through social networks

Niemiec

Jones

Lischka

et al. 2021

Conservation Biology

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Research suggests that encouraging motivated residents to reach out to others in their social network is an effective strategy for increasing the scale and speed of conservation action adoption. However, little is known about how to effectively encourage large numbers of residents to reach out to others about conservation causes. We examined the influence of normative and efficacy-based messaging at motivating residents to engage in and to encourage others to participate in native plant gardening in their community. To do so, we conducted a field experiment with messages on mailings and tracked native plant vouchers used. Efficacy messages tended to be more effective than normative messages at increasing residents' willingness to reach out to others to encourage conservation action, as indicated by a several percentage point increase in native plant voucher use by residents' friends and neighbors. Messages sometimes had different impacts on residents based on past behaviors and perceptions related to native plant gardening. Among these subgroups, efficacy and combined efficacy and norm messages most effectively encouraged individual and collective actions, as indicated by increased voucher usage. Our findings suggest that interventions that build residents' efficacy for engaging in a conservation behavior and for reaching out to others may be a promising path forward for outreach. However, given our results were significant at a false discovery rate cutoff of 0.25 but not 0.05, more experimental trials are needed to determine the robustness of these trends.

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Clarifying the degree and type of public good collective action problem posed by natural resource management challenges

Cited by 20 publications

References 38 publications

You vs. us: framing adaptation behavior in terms of private or social benefits

You vs. us: framing adaptation behavior in terms of private or social benefits

Leveraging collective action and environmental literacy to address complex sustainability challenges

Efficacy‐based and normative interventions for facilitating the diffusion of conservation behavior through social networks

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