題目: What determine our environmentally conscious behavior?

氏名: Masayuki Hoshina

担当教官: Alan. S. Miller


 The environmental problem is one of the most serious problems in the modern society. And we know that we can stop all of those problems from becoming increasingly serious by taking environmentally conscious behavior. However, in our society, some people take that behavior positively, while some people do it negatively. Why is there such a difference? One of the reasons is cost. If people try to take environmentally conscious behavior, we have to spend time and make effort (e.g. purchasing environmentally-friendly items, recycling materials, and so on). We don’t like to change our lifestyles even though we understand the seriousness of environmental problems. There are also many other reasons why people choose a behavior in a situation. If we can make the reason clear, we may make people take environmentally conscious behavior naturally.

 In this study, we focused on the influence from many others. So, we examined majority cognition and false consensus as important factors to influence to our behavior by using a questionnaire. Additionally, we compared the differences between Japan and U.S.A. In this paper, majority cognition means an estimate of how many people around us (e.g. in a society, in Japan, in the world, etc.) take environmentally conscious behavior in a situation. In our questionnaire, we asked participants “please estimate how many people actually practice these behavior in your nation”.

 As a result, we clarified majority cognition influences to our environmentally conscious behavior independently and directly both in Japan and in U.S.A.. That is to say, when people take environmentally conscious behavior, it is important whether many other people do it or not. And if they recognize many people do it, they will choose that behavior naturally. Considering it, to make people take environmentally conscious behavior, it is very useful to let people know many people do it. But, the effect of taking the behavior is not obvious. That is, even if we take environmentally conscious behavior, we can’t realize we get a return clearly. This is another important reason why everybody doesn’t take environmentally conscious behavior. We hope somebody will solve this problem in the future.


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