The Influence Of Environmental Identity On The Cognitive Process Of Environmental Decision-making

Environmental decision making is one of the critical social decisions and refers to the mental process that people need to respond to issues involving the environment.People face two main types of environmental decisions in daily life: public sphere and private sphere decisions,both of which are based on the trade-off between individual interests and group interests.Previous research on social decision making has found that individuals' choices may differ at different decision times,reflecting different decision processing: intuitive versus deliberative processes.However,this dynamic of environmental decision-making has not received much attention from environmental psychologists.Although environmental identity in a relational value orientation plays an important role in predicting and explaining pro-environmental behavior,its mechanism of action,especially the role it plays in environmental decision-making processes,needs to be further defined.In addition,identity theory suggests that individuals with salient identities will act in accordance with a certain identity,and this effect may be beneficial in promoting pro-environmental behaviors.Based on this background,the current study used a combination of subjective reports,behavioral experiments,and event-related potential techniques to investigate the following issues with three studies: first,to preliminary identify the processing process of environmental decision making and its characteristics;then,to examine the causal relationship between environmental identity and environmental decision making;and finally,to explore the effectiveness of environmental identity salience on the nudge of environmental decision making.Study 1 consisted of four experiments using mini-dictator games to preliminarily investigate the processing of environmental decision making and its properties from both behavioral and EEG by computing subjects' pro-environmental decision preferences and recording neural responses during processing of decision information,respectively.In Experiment 1,subjects were faced with a public sphere environmental decision-making situation of donating money to environmental organizations.It was found that subjects' proenvironmental decision preferences were significantly stronger in the time-pressure condition than in the time-delay condition(Experiment 1a);the mean wave amplitude of N1(100-180 ms)evoked by the time-pressure condition was significantly smaller than that of the time-delay condition,and the mean wave amplitude of P2(200-280 ms)evoked by the time-pressure condition was significantly larger than that of the time-delay condition(Experiment 1b).In Experiment 2,subjects were exposed to a private sphere environmental decision situation of purchasing environmentally friendly daily necessities.It was shown that subjects' pro-environmental decision preferences were significantly stronger in the timepressure condition than in the time-delay condition(Experiment 2a);the mean wave amplitude of N1(100-180 ms)induced by the time-pressure condition was significantly smaller than that of the time-delay condition,while the difference between the mean wave amplitude of P2(200-280 ms)induced by the time-pressure and time-delay conditions was not significant(Experiment 2b).Study 2 examined the causal relationship between environmental identity and environmental decision making using a survey method and behavioral experiments,including one survey and two experiments.Survey 1 explored the influence of environmental identity on environmental decision making and the role of decision processing characteristics in it using a subjective report.The results found that both natural and group environmental identities positively predicted environmental decision outcomes,and decision processing characteristics were important mediating variables.Meanwhile,natural identity was more effective in predicting pro-environmental behavior compared to group identity.Experiment3 found that in the public sphere environmental decision-making context,weak environmental identity subjects' pro-environmental decision preferences were significantly stronger in the time-pressure than in the time-delay condition,while strong environmental identity subjects' decision preferences did not differ significantly between the two decisionmaking conditions.Experiment 4 revealed that in the private sphere environmental decisionmaking context,subjects with weak environmental identity had stronger pro-environmental decision preferences in the time-pressure condition compared to the time-delay condition,whereas individuals with strong environmental identity had non-significant differences in decision preferences between the two decision-making conditions.Study 3 aimed to explore the effectiveness of environmental identity salience and its effect on environmental decision outcomes consisting of three experiments.Experiment 5showed that after reading texts related to environmental identity,subjects' environmental identity was significantly stronger than that of subjects reading non-environmental identity texts and controls.Also,subjects in the environmental identity primed group were willing to cede more self-benefits to support environmental protection when faced with environmental decisions in the public and private domains.In addition,people were generally more willing to support others' environmental activities compared to supporting others' green purchasing behaviors.Experiment 6 found that subjects in the environmental identity picture priming group had significantly stronger environmental identities than subjects in the nonenvironmental identity picture priming and control groups,and their assigned amounts were the largest.Experiment 7 revealed that subjects who were given the environmental identity label allocated more amounts for both the purchase of environmental products for others and the organization of environmental activities.In summary,first,environmental decision making is a dual-processing of intuitive and deliberative processes,where individuals devote fewer cognitive resources to intuitive processing.People generally have a pro-environmental intuitive preference,but prudential processing weakens this preference;in other words,environmental decision preference diminishes with time.Second,the mechanism of environmental identity's effect on environmental decision making is described as follows: strong environmental identity both increases individuals' pro-environmental decision preferences during intuitive processing and,to some extent,circumvents the self-interested preferences resulting from deliberative processing.Third,both identity cues and labeling can emphasize individuals' environmental identities,and motivate individuals to make more pro-environmental decisions.Finally,combining all the results,this study explores the strategy of facilitating environmental decision making in terms of both decision cognitive process and environmental identity.