Cultural Evolution of Sustainable Behaviors: Pro-environmental Tipping Points in an Agent-Based Model

Abstract

Graphical AbstractHighlights d An ABM is used to study the cultural evolution of sustainable behaviors d Behaviors emerge as a function of affordances, social learning, and habits d The affordances in an environment have a major effect on behavior adoption d The ABM is validated against cycling behaviors in Copenhagen Authors Roope Oskari Kaaronen, Nikita Strelkovskii Correspondence roope.kaaronen@helsinki.fi In Brief Kaaronen and Strelkovskii have designed an agent-based model to study the cultural evolution of sustainable behaviors. Behaviors emerge as a product of personal, environmental, and social factors. Particularly the structure of the environment has an effect on the adoption of pro-environmental behaviors. Even linear changes in pro-environmental affordances (action opportunities) can trigger non-linear collective behavior change. The model is validated against cycling behaviors in Copenhagen. This model gives further justification for policies and urban design that make proenvironmental behavior psychologically salient, accessible, and easy.

Consideration of culture is vital if we are to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals

“…First, unsustainable production practices and consumption behaviors (12.1-12.b), which may lead to resource scarcity (6.1-6.a and 7.1-7.b), ecological degradation (14.1-14.2, 14.4, and 15.1-15.5), and climate change (13.1-13.2), are culturally engrained. 63 For instance, in countries with a culture of hospitality, such as China, a lack of leftovers by guests is considered a shameful sign that the hosts did not provide the guests with sufficient offerings or treat them well. Therefore, people are prone to cook much more food for banquets and events than is needed, resulting in a large amount of food waste, 64 which directly conflicts with SDG 12 (12.3) and indirectly affects the other five planet-related SDGs.…”

“…exhibit positive feedback loops in the adoption of pro-environmental behaviors and cultural traits, leading to the cultural evolution of sustainable behaviors. 63 Although existing analyses and evidence concerning the relations between culture and sustainable development are fruitful, they fail to provide an in-depth understanding of how the links between culture and sustainability vary across the SDGs and cultural traits as a result of two barriers. First, most of the literature considers isolated contexts with various approaches (e.g., case study, theoretical analysis, and statistical analysis), multiple scales (e.g., from the individual level to the national level), and even different interpretations of the ''same'' cultural trait.…”

Innovative methods for observing and changing complex health behaviors: four propositions

“…Second, simulation studies enable the formalization of hypotheses that would be difficult to explore or visualize empirically due to practical or technical limitations, such as emergent properties of a system (see examples of agent-based models in public health [ 59 ]), or life-span analyses [ 60 ]. For example, computational modeling and simulation techniques have recently been used to understand how changes to a city’s infrastructure can lead to the nonlinear adoption of cycling behavior [ 61 ]. Finally, at the conceptual level, simulation helps to better formalize behavior change theories in terms of temporal, contextual, and individual aspects, which can ultimately help to disseminate theories to researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers, and generate ideas for empirical studies that challenge their assumption (computational modeling and associated simulation techniques are available in many standard data analytic tools, such as R, MatLab, or Python).…”

An ecological approach to personality: Psychological traits as drivers and consequences of active perception

“…Some ecological psychology researchers such as de Haan, Rietveld, Stokhof, and Denys have noted that there needs to be more research into “the many different ways in which the perceived environment can solicit activity” and what might lead to variance in “whether something presents itself as an attraction or rather as an “avoidance” (footnote 8, de Haan et al., 2013), but there is still yet to be a widespread use of personality in ecological psychology work. Indeed, further interaction between the individual differences (Smaldino et al., 2019) and agent‐based (Kaaronen & Strelkovskii, 2020) computational modeling techniques for examining how an agent interacts with an environment are useful for formalizing theory in this area. It would be fruitful for research in affordances to consider the influences of psychological traits as explaining variance in complex affordances.…”