Promoting Social-Environmental Participation and Well-being through Shared Values

气候变化、污染和生物多样性减少是缺乏充分协调管理环境等集体资源的危险例证。有证据表明，如果成员相信他们在群体中有共同的行为标准，那么社区内的集体行动就会更大。社会心理学表明，强调个人和个人群体之间共同价值观的干预可能有助于通过帮助发展共同身份来促进公民参与气候变化等可持续性挑战。过去50年关于价值观的研究证据普遍支持施瓦茨的价值观模型。这将价值观划分为关注成长还是自我保护，关注社会还是个人，从而产生四种主要的价值观：自我提升的价值观，如成功；自我超越的价值观，比如乐于助人；保护价值观，如尊重传统和开放价值观，如好奇心。自我超越的价值观特别关注对他人的同情，这种力量有助于形成共同的身份。共同的身份本身与归属感（与更大的幸福感相关）和共同的主观规范（与更大的公民参与相关）有关。重要的是，证据一致表明，来自不同群体的人往往有着相反的利益，他们分享的富有同情心的价值观远比他们认为的要多。在环境价值方面尤其如此：人们（错误地）认为其他人比自己更重视可持续性。在收集了社区内价值观的基线数据之后，本项目的第一个主要目的是检查旨在发展共同价值认同的干预措施对个人福祉、社区凝聚力以及偏见和包容性措施的影响。横断面研究将有助于制定适当的共享价值干预措施，随后将进行更详细的纵向设计，更详细地检查共享价值干预措施的长期影响。这些数据将有助于突出个人未能认识到在共同价值观方面与其他人的相似性的领域，而制定成功的共同价值观干预措施可能会对帮助培养强烈的社区凝聚力产生重大影响，以应对气候变化和应对COVID-19大流行等需要集体行动的挑战。该项目的第二个主要目的是确定在有争议的社会和政治问题上，在对立群体之间建立共同的身份认同是否有助于解决分歧。先前的研究强调，政治信仰不同的人确实有共同的价值观，旨在强调这些共同价值观的干预可能有助于减少群体间的敌意，促进对手头问题的开放参与。从这些研究中获得的数据和成功干预措施的发展将使公共辩论成为一种更合作的媒介，这将在公民咨询小组等计划的发展中有许多应用，公民咨询小组正日益被吹捧为解决英国退欧和气候变化等问题分歧的一种手段。

Climate change, pollution and reduced biodiversity exemplify the dangers in managing collective resources such as our environment without sufficient co-ordination. Evidence suggests that collective action within communities is greater if members believe they share standards on how to behave in groups. Social psychology suggests that interventions highlighting shared values between individuals and groups of individuals may help to promote civic engagement with sustainability challenges like climate change by helping to develop shared identity. Evidence from research on values in the last 50 years has generally supported Schwartz's model of values. This splits values in terms of whether they focus on growth or self-protection and whether they have a social or personal focus, resulting in four main groups of values: self-enhancement values such as success; self-transcendence values such as helpfulness; conservation values such as respecting tradition and openness values such as curiosity. Self-transcendence values in particular focus on compassion for others, the strength of which contributes to shared identity. Shared identity has itself been linked feelings of belongingness (associated with greater well-being) and shared subjective norms (associated with greater civic engagement). Importantly, evidence consistently shows that people from diverse groups with often opposing interests share compassionate values far more than they believe they do. This is particularly true of environmental values: people (wrongly) believe that others value sustainability less than themselves. Following collection of baseline data on values within communities, the first main aim of this project is to examine the effects of an intervention designed to develop shared value identities on individual wellbeing, community cohesion and measures of prejudice and inclusivity. Cross-sectional studies will help to develop appropriate shared value interventions, and will be followed by more detailed longitudinal designs examining the long term effects of shared values interventions in more detail. The data will help to highlight areas where individuals fail to recognise similarity to others in terms of shared values, and the development of a successful shared values intervention could have large impacts in helping to develop strong senses of community cohesion in the face of challenges which require collective action such as climate change and the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The second main aim of this project is to establish whether building shared identities between opposing groups on contentious social and political issues helps to resolve differences. Previous research has highlighted that people with opposing political beliefs do share values, and that interventions aimed at highlighting these shared values may help to reduce intergroup animosity and foster open-minded engagement with the issues at hand. The data taken from these studies and the development of successful interventions to shape public debate into a more collaborate medium will have many applications to the development of schemes such as Citizen Advisory Groups, which are increasingly being touted as a means of resolving differences around issues such as Brexit and climate change.