Understanding Norm Clusters and Their Dynamics in the Transition to Renewable Energy

了解标准集群及其在向可再生能源过渡中的动态

• 批准号: 2018063
• 负责人: Elke Weber
• 金额: $ 49.7万
• 依托单位: Princeton University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-09-01 至 2023-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2018063&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Understanding; Norm; Clusters; Their; Dynamics

This project seeks to understand how people's worldviews and actions are impacted by the beliefs and actions of others. It examines this question in an important context for our nation's security, health, and natural environment: support for renewable energy and offshore wind. It measures people’s perceptions of a broad range of beliefs and actions they hold of others and examines how these beliefs cluster together and create a social reality about what is normal that shapes one's own opinion about energy policy and technology. The studies also examine what happens to this cluster of beliefs as external events modify one of the beliefs. Not only is the domain selected, offshore wind support, better understood by this work, but the ways that people are impacted by others' actions and beliefs are clarified broadly. Given that interventions for many social problems in health, education, environmentalism, security and other domains seek to harness how we are influenced by others in order to create positive social change, this deeper understanding of how social influence can inform and improve these interventions can help benefit addressing many contemporary social problems.This project seeks to understand social norms as a clustered network of connected social perceptions. Theoretical and applied research on social norm perceptions or interventions often only study or utilize one norm at a time. Social norms, however do not exist in isolation. Instead, norms co-exist in a network of other descriptive or normative beliefs, forming clusters. This research clarifies how perceptions of social norms are connected and the causal relationship of those connections, pursuing the following questions: How are networks of social norm perceptions organized? Do norm clusters have a hierarchical structure, and do higher-order beliefs dictate more specific lower-order beliefs? What happens when one of these norms gets modified, either by an experimental manipulation or by some naturally occurring change(s) in the environment? Does such a change in the perception of a norm only influence beliefs or behaviors directly connected to it or does its effect spread throughout the norm's cluster as activation does in a semantic network? The team explores how these diagnosed characteristics of norm clusters can be used to shift individual behavior or belief. In a series of studies over 2 years, the scholars examine perceptions of norms surrounding the topic of offshore wind energy and relevant policy support. Using online survey experiments and a combination of convenience samples, representative samples and longitudinal data, the team assesses the structure of norm clusters, which normative and descriptive beliefs are more related to others, and investigates how manipulating one norm in a cluster can affect the perception of norms it is connected to. These insights are used to compare multiple norm intervention techniques to see which is most successful at increasing understanding. Rather than simply intervening on a single norm, understanding the norm cluster for offshore wind allows the team to better understand the most fruitful place to intervene and reveals multiple points for leverage on this issue, so the team may identify a cleaner, more sustainable, and economically viable energy system. Beyond offshore wind, social norm interventions are used across a variety of domains. This research provides a methodology and theoretical framework for applied researchers that would enable them to understand how and where to best intervene in a norms cluster to enhance understanding.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该项目旨在了解人们的世界观和行为如何受到他人的信仰和行为的影响。它在我们国家的安全，健康和自然环境的重要背景下审查了这个问题：支持可再生能源和海上风电。它衡量人们对他们对他人持有的广泛信仰和行动的看法，并研究这些信仰如何聚集在一起，并创造一个关于什么是正常的社会现实，从而形成自己对能源政策和技术的看法。这些研究还考察了当外部事件改变了其中一个信念时，这一信念簇会发生什么。这项工作不仅更好地理解了所选择的领域，海上风电支持，而且还广泛地阐明了人们受到他人行为和信仰影响的方式。在健康、教育、环保、安全等领域，对许多社会问题的干预都是为了利用他人对我们的影响来创造积极的社会变革，因此，深入了解社会影响如何为这些干预提供信息和改善这些干预，有助于解决许多当代社会问题。本项目旨在将社会规范理解为相互关联的社会观念的集群网络。关于社会规范认知或干预的理论和应用研究往往一次只研究或利用一种规范。然而，社会规范并不是孤立存在的。相反，规范共存于其他描述性或规范性信念的网络中，形成集群。这项研究阐明了社会规范感知如何联系以及这些联系的因果关系，探讨了以下问题：社会规范感知网络是如何组织的？规范集群是否具有层次结构，高阶信念是否决定了更具体的低阶信念？当这些规范中的一个被修改时，会发生什么，无论是通过实验操作还是通过环境中自然发生的变化？这种对规范感知的变化是否只影响与之直接相关的信念或行为，或者其影响是否会像语义网络中的激活那样在整个规范集群中传播？该团队探索了这些诊断出的规范集群特征如何用于改变个人行为或信念。在两年多的一系列研究中，学者们研究了围绕海上风能主题的规范和相关政策支持的看法。使用在线调查实验和便利样本，代表性样本和纵向数据的组合，该团队评估了规范集群的结构，哪些规范和描述性信念与其他信念更相关，并调查了如何操纵集群中的一个规范可以影响它所连接的规范的感知。这些见解被用来比较多个规范干预技术，看看哪一个是最成功的增加理解。而不是简单地干预单个规范，了解海上风电的规范集群可以让团队更好地了解最有成效的干预地点，并揭示在这个问题上的多个杠杆点，因此团队可以确定一个更清洁，更可持续，经济上可行的能源系统。除了海上风电，社会规范干预还用于各种领域。该研究为应用研究人员提供了一种方法和理论框架，使他们能够了解如何以及在何处最好地干预规范集群，以提高理解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。