Social Psychology in Action 2

1. Social Psychology in Action 2 Social Psychology and the Environment

2. Chapter Outline I. The Environment as a Source of Stress

3. The Environment as a Source of Stress • A major source of stress is the environment in which we live. To understand when the environment will be stressful, we have to understand how and why people construe that environment as a threat to their well-being.

4. The Environment as a Source of Stress • Noise as a Source of Stress Whether people will find loud noise psychologically stressful depends on how people interpret the noise and how much control they feel they have over it.

5. The Environment as a Source of Stress • Noise as a Source of Stress According to Glass and Singer (1972), people who believed they could control a noxious noise did about as well on a task as people who heard no noise at all.

6. The Environment as a Source of Stress • Crowding as a Source of Stress The growth in human population poses potential dangers of malnutrition and creates stress through the phenomenon of crowding.

7. The Environment as a Source of Stress • Crowding as a Source of Stress The presence of many others is not always unpleasant, thus a distinction is made between density and crowding. Density is the number of people who occupy a given space, while Crowding is the subjective feeling of unpleasantness due to the presence of other people.

8. The Environment as a Source of Stress • Crowding as a Source of Stress One factor that turns density into crowding is the amount of control people feel they have over the density in their environment.

9. The Environment as a Source of Stress • Crowding as a Source of Stress A second factor that determines when density becomes crowding are the attributions that people make for the arousal that derives from the mere presence of others.

10. The Environment as a Source of Stress • Crowding as a Source of Stress Finally, crowding will be aversive if it leads to sensory overload, the situation in which we receive more stimulation from the environment than we can pay attention to or process at a given time.

11. Chapter Outline II. Using Social Psychology to Change Environmentally Damaging Behaviors

12. Using Social Psychology to Change Behaviors • Resolving Social Dilemmas A social dilemma is a situation in which the beneficial action for an individual will, if chosen by most people, have harmful effects on everyone.

13. Using Social Psychology to Change Behaviors • Resolving Social Dilemmas Social dilemmas can result from pressure to participate in efforts to conserve water, conserve energy and reduce litter, among other things.

14. Using Social Psychology to Change Behaviors • Resolving Social Dilemmas Social dilemmas may be resolved by allowing people to communicate with one another, by making it easier for people to monitor their behaviors, by making people’s behavior as public as possible, and by changing the way in which people perceive themselves and their social behavior.

15. Using Social Psychology to Change Behaviors • Conserving Water Research finds that making people feel hypocritical can increase their water conservation behaviors.

16. Using Social Psychology to Change Behaviors • Conserving Energy Aronson and colleagues (1988, 1990) found that making energy loss vivid to homeowners increased their energy conservation behaviors. Also, making conservation competitive can make people more careful about their energy use.

17. Using Social Psychology to Change Behaviors • Reducing Litter Two important norms can influence whether people litter. Injunctive norms are people’s perceptions of what behaviors are approved or disapproved of by others. Descriptive norms are people’s perceptions of how other people actually behave in a given situation, regardless of whether the behavior is approved or disapproved of by others.

18. Using Social Psychology to Change Behaviors • Reducing Litter Cialdini and colleagues (1990) found that seeing one conspicuous piece of litter in an otherwise clean environment can communicate the descriptive norm against littering. Although both descriptive and injunctive norms can reduce littering, injunctive norms are more effective.

19. Using Social Psychology to Change Behaviors • Getting People to Recycle Although changing people’s attitudes can be effective at increasing recycling, removing the barriers to recycling may be more effective. Increasing the number of recycling bins in a community, instituting curbside recycling, and allowing residents to mix materials have all been found to increase people’s recycling behaviors.

20. Study Questions When is an environment stressful? What are relatively recent environmental stressors that our civilization has to face?

21. Study Questions When is noise psychologically stressful? What conditions are necessary to reduce the ill effects of loud noise? What are detrimental effects of uncontrollable noise?

22. Study Questions What are findings from studies of crowding in animals and humans? What psychological effects do crowded dorms have on students? Why is crowding aversive?

23. Study Questions How are the effects of noise and crowding similar?

24. Study Questions What is sensory overload and what are its consequences?

25. Study Questions What is a social dilemma, why do they occur, and why are they difficult to resolve? According to research, how can we resolve social dilemmas?

26. Study Questions What is the role of cognitive dissonance and hypocrisy in increasing environmentally sound behaviors? Why is the hypocrisy technique successful at increasing water conservation?

27. Study Questions What strategies have been successful at increasing energy conservation behaviors? What types of information do we need to give people so that they will conserve?

28. Study Questions How can we get people to stop littering? What roles do injunctive and descriptive norms play in decreasing littering? Why are injunctive norms more effective than descriptive norms?

29. Study Questions What strategies have been successful for increasing recycling behaviors?