Abstract:

People may be aware of environmental problems but still not behave in ways that will solve them. What kind of educational program promotes environmentally responsible behavior? Since we have already found that the most influential factor promoting environmentally responsible behavior is cost consciousness, we hypothesized that the most effective educational program would be one fostering an understanding of social dilemmas. Testing this hypothesis in an experiment comparing a social dilemma program and an enlightenment program, we found that only the social dilemma education program increased cost consciousness and elicited environmentally responsible behavior. We therefore think that a social dilemma education program would promote environmentally responsible behavior better than an enlightenment education program would.

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proceedings