Social norms and climate-friendly behavior of adolescents

authored by

Ann Kathrin Koessler, Tobias Vorlaufer, Florian Fiebelkorn

Abstract

Adolescents are the decision-makers of the future, and as educational research shows, behaviors, habits, and attitudes established at young age strongly shape behavior in adulthood. Therefore, it is important to understand what factors shape young people's climate-relevant behavior. In this study, we examine how information about peer behavior affects adolescents' perception of prevailing social norms and own decision-making. Experimentally, we manipulated whether adolescents received information about other young people's (lack of) support for climate protection, operationalized as a donation to a CO2 offsetting scheme. We find that empirical expectations shifted for all age groups when the information revealed that peers donated nothing or only small amounts. Donation behavior and the normative assessment, however, changed only in the younger age groups. Our study illustrates the caution that must be exercised when others' behavior becomes visible or is deliberatively made salient in order to induce behavioral change, especially among young individuals.

Organisation(s)

Institute of Environmental Planning
Environmental Behaviour and Planning

External Organisation(s)

London School of Economics and Political Science
Osnabrück University

Type

Article

Journal

PLOS ONE

Volume

17

ISSN

1932-6203

Publication date

27.04.2022

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

General

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 13 - Climate Action

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266847 (Access: Open)