Extrinsic motivators drive children’s cooperation to conserve forests

Abstract

Forests are essential common-pool resources. Understanding school-aged children and adolescents’ motivations to conserve forests is critical for improving conservation education. In two experiments with school age children and adolescents (age range: 6-16; N=1088), we demonstrate that extrinsic, rather than intrinsic motivations lead to successful cooperation in common-pool goods games to maintain a forest. We investigate participants from three nationalities (China, D. R. Congo and U.S.) and find certainty of losing individual payoffs significantly boosts successful cooperative conservation efforts across cultures. Within the U.S. sample, we find two other types of extrinsic incentive, priming discussions of the value of forests and delay of payoffs as punishment also encourage the success of cooperative conservation. Conservation simulations, like those used here, may allow educators to encourage forest protection by allowing groups to experience successful cooperation and the extrinsic incentives needed to motivate forest conservation. Future research will be needed to test if these types of simulations have long term positive impact on participant’s attitudes and behavior toward forest conservation.One Sentence SummaryExtrinsic motivation increases donations for forests among children and adolescents in the United States, China, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Biophilia Reactivity Hypothesis: biophilia as a temperament trait, or more precisely, a domain specific attraction to biodiversity

“…An attraction towards other humans is well established in the literature as a temperament trait, also known as sociability (Rettew, 2013). Bowie et al (2021) directly tested the AH against Wilson's biophilia hypothesis. In a cross-cultural study of 1088 children in Congo, China and the US, researchers found no evidence for an intrinsic motivation in children to save forests.…”

“…We conclude that a revised hypothesis exploring biophilia is necessary, given the rise in the popularity of biophilia, which has consequences in several key areas. For example, conservation education assumes people are intrinsically motivated to maintain or increase biodiversity, when recent work has found that this Is not the case (Bowie et al, 2021). Urban planning is increasingly treating access to biophilic areas as a social justice issue, even though these areas might be harmful when treated with herbicides and pesticides (Chawla, 2015).…”