The SRN Brown Bag Series gives students and faculty an opportunity to share their research ideas on projects relating to environmental, societal and/or governance issues, and receive feedback from SRN colleagues in an informal setting.
If you would like to present in the SRN Brown Bag Series, please contact us at srnhaslam@utk.edu.
Monday, Oct 17
12-1 p.m.
They did what? Why the unexpected sustainable behaviors of others lead to positive outcomes.
In this research, we are studying how observing the unexpected behavior of others affects our own sustainable consumption choices. We propose and show that observing an unexpected positive behavior of others affects one's personal behavior more strongly than if the behavior was expected. For example, seeing a non-environmentally conscious friend bringing a reusable coffee cup when getting coffee at a coffee shop - a behavior that is clearly unexpected - affects one's own willingness to bring a reusable cup the next time they get coffee at a coffee shop more strongly than observing the same behavior of an environmentally conscious friend, from whom that behavior would have been expected. We show that the effect can be explained by an increased pressure to conform to social norms, which is triggered by observing unexpected vs. expected behavior. As a result, we predict that the effect of unexpectedness on the behavior of the observer, and hence the pressure to follow suit with that behavior, will be strengthened if the behavior is not yet an established norm and attenuated if it is.
Speaker: Carina Thuerridl
Speaker: Carina Thuerridl
HBB 334