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Conference of the European Social Simulation Association

ESSA 2019: Advances in Social Simulation pp 445–457Cite as

Social Norms and the Threat of Climate Change: An Agent-Based Model to Investigate Pro-Environmental Behaviour

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Part of the book series: Springer Proceedings in Complexity ((SPCOM))

Abstract

How people react towards threatening information such as climate change is a non-trivial matter. While people with a high environmental self-identity tend to react approach-motivated by engaging in pro-environmental behaviour, people of low environmental self-identity may exhibit proximal defence behaviour, by avoiding and distracting themselves from potentially threatening stimuli caused by identified anxious thoughts and circumstances. This psychological theory has recently been tested in experimental studies in which results suggest that the promotion of climate change information can also backfire. Based on these findings, we propose an agent-based model to address influences on anxiety and correlated pro-environmental actions in relation to societal norms of climate change scepticism and environmental self-identity.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Values are general and abstract principles that one strives for in life, while self-identity reflects how one sees oneself. We will limit further discussion to the latter terminology. See [26] for a conceptual differentiation between environmental preferences, intentions and behaviour.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of System Sciences, Innovation and Sustainability Research, University of Graz, 8010, Graz, Austria

    Marie L. Kapeller, Georg Jäger & Manfred Füllsack

Authors
  1. Marie L. Kapeller
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  2. Georg Jäger
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  3. Manfred Füllsack
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Correspondence to Marie L. Kapeller .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Mainz, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany

    Petra Ahrweiler

  2. Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Mainz, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany

    Martin Neumann

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Kapeller, M.L., Jäger, G., Füllsack, M. (2021). Social Norms and the Threat of Climate Change: An Agent-Based Model to Investigate Pro-Environmental Behaviour. In: Ahrweiler, P., Neumann, M. (eds) Advances in Social Simulation. ESSA 2019. Springer Proceedings in Complexity. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61503-1_42

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