Exploring the adoption, maintenance, and transmission of pro-environmental behaviour among moralised practice group members and non-members

气候变化通常被描述为一个“集体行动”问题，只有通过全球行为改变和政治动员才能解决。交通、饮食和物质消费被广泛认为是环境行为改变的关键场所。然而，由于这种变化与日常生活密不可分，这种变化需要做出巨大的牺牲，往往不会给个人带来直接的、切实的结果。然而，鉴于人们对环境问题的道德敏感性，许多人确实大幅调整了他们的日常行为。这些人的行为属于少数群体，他们的日常行为往往受到社会的污名。部分由于他们的少数民族身份和潜在的耻辱地位，他们逐渐形成了围绕他们生活方式变化的身份认同，如“纯素食者”或“自行车手”，为此我提出了“基于环境道德实践的身份认同”(Empis)。虽然Empis目前是少数群体，但他们对二氧化碳排放的影响很大。如果全面采用与企业绩效指标相关的行为，可以大大减少全球各领域的二氧化碳排放，由于这些领域的个人性质，这些领域往往是政策干预的不情愿目标。然而，对这些身份的研究目前停留在主题和学科孤岛上。在日照下考察这种环境特性忽略了不同Empi的潜在动机和行为协同效应。心理社会认同理论忽视了重要的地理空间、政治和人口因素对企业挑衅和形成的影响。相比之下，尽管社会学中的社会实践理论承认基础设施在制定身份认同方面的重要性，但它们忽视了归属感和冲突的社会-心理群体间过程。这些现有理论的局限性，以及社会减少二氧化碳排放的必要性，为一个跨学科的混合方法研究计划提供了机会，该计划检查企业及其对周围人的态度和行为的影响。这位博士将通过国际、跨学科和混合方法的合作，在两个关键方面为这一项目做出贡献。首先，我将开发一个Empi发展的阶段模型，综合推动身份激发、发展和维护的社会学、心理学和地理因素。我还将探讨Empi的发展与个性特征、人口因素和环保行为之间的关系。第二，我将探讨企业管理信息系统对未被识别的个人的社会影响和生命周期。尽管市场营销学的现有研究表明，较早采用一项创新的个人总体上会对他们周围人的接受产生积极影响，但目前尚不确定这种影响是否适用于我打算调查的更具道德化色彩的行为。现有的研究和大众舆论表明，由Emi组织提供的感知把关和最低道德标准实际上可能会阻碍身份不明的个人以有利于环境的方式行事。我将在不同文化背景下关于产品购买的Empi标签的背景下探索这些动态，我还将在大学Empi社会网络的纵向自然实验中研究群体间接触在Empi随时间传播中的作用。这项研究方案结合了混合方法、跨学科和交叉的视角，提供了对Empi在影响社会网络之间和之间的亲环境行为变化的重要性的新的理解。它有可能产生洞察力，从根本上挑战政策制定者在鼓励环保行为的努力中概念化和利用个人和社会身份的方式。

Climate Change is often characterised as a 'collective action' problem, resolvable only through worldwide behavioural change and political mobilization. Transport, diet and material consumption are widely identified as crucial sites for environmental behaviour change. However, due to being inextricably woven into daily life, such changes require large sacrifices that often don't provide immediate, tangible outcomes for the individual. Yet many do people adapt their daily behaviour drastically in light of moral sensitivity to environmental concerns. These individuals act in the minority and are often subject to social stigma surrounding their daily practices. Partly as a result of their minority and potentially stigmatised status, they come to form identities surrounding their lifestyle changes, such as "vegan", or "cyclist", for which I propose the term "environmental moralised practice-based identities" (EMPIs).While EMPIs currently have minority status, their impact on C02 emissions is large. If adopted en masse, behaviours linked to EMPIs could greatly reduce C02 emissions globally in domains which, due to their personal nature, are often reluctant targets for policy interventions. However, research into these identities currently resides within topic and disciplinary silos. Examining such environmental identities in insolation ignores the potential motivational and behavioural synergies of differing EMPIs. Psychological Social Identity Theories ignore important geospatial, political and demographic impacts on EMPI provocation and formation. Contrastingly, while Social Practice Theories in sociology acknowledge the importance of infrastructure in enacting identity, they ignore social-psychological intergroup processes of belonging and conflict. The limits of these existing theories, and the necessity for societal reduction in C02 emissions, presents an opportunity for an interdisciplinary mixed-methods research program that examines EMPIs and their impact on the attitudes and behaviours of those around them. This PhD will contribute to such a program in two key ways via an international, interdisciplinary, and mixed-methods collaboration.Firstly, I will develop a stage-model of EMPI development, synthesising sociological, psychological and geographical factors driving identity provocation, development and maintenance. I will also explore how EMPI development is related to personality traits, demographic factors and pro-environmental behaviour. Cross-domain sensitivity of EMPIs to other pro-environmental behaviours will also be examined.Secondly, I will explore the societal impact and lifecycle of EMPIs on non-identified individuals. While existing research in marketing suggests that individuals who adopt an innovation early have an overall positive impact on the uptake of those around them, it is uncertain whether this effect holds for the more moralised behaviours I propose to investigate. Existing research and popular opinion suggest that perceived gatekeeping and minimal moral standards offered by EMPI groups might actually discourage non-identified individuals from behaving in pro-environmental ways. I will explore these dynamics in the context of EMPI labelling of products on product purchase in different cultural contexts and I will also examine the role of intergroup contact in transmission of EMPIs over time, in a longitudinal natural experiment of EMPI social networks at university.This research proposal incorporates mixed-method, interdisciplinary and intersectional perspectives to offer a new understanding of the importance of EMPIs for influencing pro-environmental behaviour change among and between social networks. It holds the potential to generate insights that stand to fundamentally challenge the ways in which policy makers conceptualise and utilise personal and social identities in their attempts to encourage pro-environmental behaviour.