Social Psychology of Watersheds Donelson R. Forsyth Jepson School of Leadership Studies University of Richmond This work is funded by NSF grant 9874924, An Integrated Multi- objective Decision Analysis Model for an Urban Watershed in the Richmond, VA Metropolitan Area. Thanks are extended to my colleagues, including Garret Schlein, Paul Story, Margot Garcia, Linda E.Zyzniewski and Natalie A. Kerr, for their assistance with the For notes see: http://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~df
Transcript
Social Psychology of Watersheds
Donelson R. ForsythJepson School of Leadership Studies
University of Richmond
This work is funded by NSF grant 9874924, An Integrated Multi-objective Decision Analysis Model for an Urban Watershed in the Richmond, VA Metropolitan Area. Thanks are extended to my
colleagues, including Garret Schlein, Paul Story, Margot Garcia, Linda E.Zyzniewski and Natalie A. Kerr, for their assistance with the research reported here.
For notes see: http://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~dforsyth/
Overview
Social Psychological Assumptions
Social Psychology and the Environment
Water Issues
A Little Data on Engagement
Social Psychological Assumptions
Behavior = (P, E)
Kurt Lewin
Nothing so practical….
•How do people perceive the environments
around them?•Why do they come to develop proprietary
orientations towards areas that they use
frequently? •What is the relationship between overcrowding
and pathological social behaviors?•How do individuals cope when the
neighborhoods in which they live are too noisy,
too polluted, or too difficult to territorialize?•When will people take actions to protect
environmental resources?
Social Psychology and the Environment
Quiz: Can You Identify this Location on the UR Campus?
irrigate crops, wash the car or boat, or sprinkle the
lawn.
Watersheds, particularly in urban areas, can also carry away things besides water, such as
eroded soil, chemicals, trash, and other pollutants.
Environmental disruption includes• point sources and nonpoint pollution• changes in waterflow and stream course• changes in the riparian zone
Watersheds can also experience systemic perturbations, in which the course of the water influences—dramatically—the built and natural environmental surroundings: Floods.
Study 1: A representative survey (telephone) of over 1,000 residents of the James River Basin Watershed, including Upham Brook
Study 2: A more detailed surveying (nonrepresentative) of 120 Upham Brook Watershed residents
Study 3: A reanalysis of the phone survey, examining identity issues
Study 4: An experimental study of identity activation and environmental engagement
A Little Data on Engagement
Awareness
Appraisal
BehaviorSense of Community
1.People must be aware 2.People must be concerned(Engagement as “helping behavior”)
Awareness
The majority of the residents were not aware of a “stream or brook” that runs through “your neighborhood.”
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Unaware Aware
JamesUpham
Appraisal
If aware: “What condition is the stream or brook in?” Most thought clean, not dirty.
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Clean Dirty Don't Know
JamesUpham
Individuals who were aware of streams, and who considered those streams to be polluted were more likely to report willingness to get involved in watershed clean up activities; F (3, 1096) = 9.70, p < .01
Watershed Awareness, Appraisal, and Intentions
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Aware/Clean Aware/Not Clean Aware/Don'tKnow
Not Aware
Intentions
Awareness
Appraisal
ResponsibilityBehavior
Dotted lines are not significantNumbers in ( ) are weights before mediation
Is sense of community related to behavioral intention?
Awareness Appraisal Behavior
Sense of CommunityWhen you think
about your community, how
often do you think in terms of [city/county
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Hi Identification Low Identification
Region
City/County
Neighborhood
Individuals who identified closely with their city/county and neighborhood (but not the region) expressed more positive behavioral intentions.
We activated identity in door-to-door surveys (n = 57)
Regional awareness condition: participants were told that they were chosen for the interview since they lived in the region, and they were asked how closely they identified with the region before continuing.
Neighborhood identity condition were told they were selected to represent their neighborhood
Control subjects were not given any identity-activating information
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Control Regional Neighborhood
Clean-upDonate
Overview
Social Psychological Assumptions
Social Psychology and the Environment
Water Issues
A Little Data on Engagement
Conclusions
Conclusions• Inaccurate knowledge, little awareness
•Individuals are relatively unaware of their watershed, but awareness + negative evaluation = greater willingness to take action to improve them
• Very high value placed on clean water, but involvement in watershed preservation is not predicted by general attitudes towards the environment
•Individuals who consider their city to be their community are more likely to express positive behavioral intentions
