Wisdom of stakeholder crowds in complex social–ecological systems

Aminpour, Payam; Gray, Steven; Jetter, Antonie; Introne, Joshua; Singer, Alison; Arlinghaus, Robert

doi:10.1038/s41893-019-0467-z

Cited by 93 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…They systematically dissect and structure complex concepts to reason and develop a shared understanding that motivates their use in this work. The designed knowledge-base consists of information from retailers, online data sources with domain and crowd-sourced knowledge, domain experts, who supported this project during its lifetime, as well as the wisdom of crowds [ 27 , 28 ], for example, by crowd-sourcing the analysis of Wikipedia data (see electronic supplementary material, table S.7). The knowledge-base is actually a set of 795 associations between 15 472 products and 25 consumer preferences belonging to the four sustainability categories of environment, health, social and quality.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How value-sensitive design can empower sustainable consumption

et al. 2021

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In a so-called overpopulated world, sustainable consumption is of existential importance. However, the expanding spectrum of product choices and their production complexity challenge consumers to make informed and value-sensitive decisions. Recent approaches based on (personalized) psychological manipulation are often intransparent, potentially privacy-invasive and inconsistent with (informational) self-determination. By contrast, responsible consumption based on informed choices currently requires reasoning to an extent that tends to overwhelm human cognitive capacity. As a result, a collective shift towards sustainable consumption remains a grand challenge. Here, we demonstrate a novel personal shopping assistant implemented as a smart phone app that supports a value-sensitive design and leverages sustainability awareness, using experts’ knowledge and ‘wisdom of the crowd’ for transparent product information and explainable product ratings. Real-world field experiments in two supermarkets confirm higher sustainability awareness and a bottom-up behavioural shift towards more sustainable consumption. These results encourage novel business models for retailers and producers, ethically aligned with consumer preferences and with higher sustainability.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How value-sensitive design can empower sustainable consumption

et al. 2021

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“…Effective environmental monitoring is imperative for understanding the complex nature of social–ecological systems, but there is often too little data to support effective decision making (Aminpour et al . ). Moreover, although public engagement and participation are essential for successful natural resource management, it is less clear whether stakeholder groups reliably make “better” decisions than individuals.…”

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confidence: 97%

Harnessing the collective intelligence of stakeholders for conservation

Gray

Aminpour

Reza

et al. 2020

Frontiers in Ecol & Environ

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B ecause environmental and natural resource stakeholders hold valuable knowledge about social-ecological dynamics, researchers often attempt to incorporate local knowledge into environmental models and resource management (Gray et al. 2018). This knowledge is considered valuable because many resource users routinely engage with the natural environment through activities like fishing or hunting (Arlinghaus and Krause 2013). In addition, natural resource users may share information about environmental, policy, or social changes across their social networks (Barnes et al. 2016), allowing them to accumulate and refine knowledge and observations across years and locations (eg anglers moving among lakes; Carruthers et al. 2018). Such local ecological knowledge is useful and can be integrated with expert scientific knowledge to provide a more comprehensive understanding of pressing environmental issues (Gray et al. 2012). At the same time, recent technological developments have vastly improved the way this information is not only collected from stakeholders but also provided through new, cyberenabled forms of participatory environmental assessments (Voinov et al. 2018). For example, the emergence of citizen science (Cooper et al. 2007; Bonney et al. 2009; Shirk et al. 2012) and the internet has changed the nature of data-sourcing by extending the geographic reach of ecological surveys considerably, and in some cases has shifted monitoring away from the consultation of a small minority of scientific experts to now include larger scale collaborations involving dozens to thousands of local stakeholders and scientists (Shirk et al. 2012). More recently, traditional citizen science has been expanded to include open online collaborative communities, leading to scientific discoveries that blend the strengths of humans and machines (Mugar et al. 2014; Trouille et al. 2019). By integrating both local and expert knowledge, citizen science and other crowdsourcing approaches can reduce the uncer

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“…Diverse experiences and modes of inquiry (but not necessarily preferences) have positive net benefits for cooperation, learning, and problem solving among social groups (e.g., refs. [5][6][7][8][9]. This insight, however, is incomplete.…”

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confidence: 99%

Social and general intelligence improves collective action in a common pool resource system

Freeman

Baggio

Coyle

2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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On a planet experiencing global environmental change, the governance of natural resources depends on sustained collective action by diverse populations. Engaging in such collective action can only build upon the foundation of human cognition in social–ecological settings. To help understand this foundation, we assess the effect of cognitive abilities on the management of a common pool resource. We present evidence that two functionally distinct cognitive abilities, general and social intelligence, improve the ability of groups to manage a common pool resource. Groups high in both forms of intelligence engage in more effective collective action that is also more consistent, despite social or ecological change. This result provides a foundation for integrating the effects of cognitive abilities with other dimensions of cognitive diversity to explain when groups will and will not sustainably govern natural resources.

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Wisdom of stakeholder crowds in complex social–ecological systems

Cited by 93 publications

References 52 publications

How value-sensitive design can empower sustainable consumption

How value-sensitive design can empower sustainable consumption

Harnessing the collective intelligence of stakeholders for conservation

Social and general intelligence improves collective action in a common pool resource system

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