The Impact Of Scarcity On Environmental Decision-making

Decision-making runs through all aspects of our lives.With the development of society,the proportion of environmental protection in people's daily life is increasing.This study integrates the latest research perspective on environmental protection decision-making and discusses the influence of scarcity on environmental protection decision-making.And proposed a possible mediation variable: construal level.To investigate its mediating role in the relationship between the two factors of interest.In study 1,a laboratory experiment was conducted to explore the influence of different population with different sense of scarcity on environmental protection decision-making.120 undergraduate students were selected as subjects and forest management game paradigm was chosen for environmental protection decision-making.The number of trees cut down in dependent variables was used as an index.The results showed that the college students who started the sense of high scarcity and deficiency cut more trees,indicating that they were more inclined to make non-environmental decision-making,while the college students who started the feeling of low scarcity and deficiency cut fewer trees,indicating that they were more inclined to make environmental protection decisions.In study 1b,the priming method of scarcity sense and the control of independent variables were verified by pre-experiment,the influence of different population with different scarcity on environmental protection decision-making was discussed by using field experiment method to manipulate the sense of scarcity.Taking 60 undergraduate students as subjects,the environmental decision-making task was measured by the paradigm of environmental decision-making problem used by Ashley and Elizabeth in this paper,which was randomly assigned to different startups with different sense of scarcity.The results show that college students with high sense of scarcity tend to throw garbage into non-recyclable garbage cans to make non-environmental decisions,while college students with low sense of scarcity tend to throw waste into recyclable dumpsters to make environmental protection decisions.In study 2,a total of 140 undergraduates were selected as subjects to measure the level of scarcity and construal level,and the dependent variable was "protectionenvironmental behavior task"(PEBT).The results showed that the higher the sense of scarcity,the more inclined to the direction of low construal level and the more inclined to make non-environmental decision-making,and the lower the sense of scarcity,the more inclined to make environmental decision-making,and the lower the sense of scarcity was,the more likely they were to make environmental decision-making.In study 2,study 2b,by introducing explanatory level variables and taking 70 college students as subjects,was randomly assigned to the environmental protection decision-making task of forest management game under the two conditions of high and low construal level,and the dependent variable was taken as the environmental protection decision-making task of forest management game.The results showed that the college students with low construal level cut down more trees,indicating that they were more inclined to make non-environmental decision-making,while the college students with high construal level cut fewer trees,indicating that they were more inclined to make environmental protection decisions.Based on the above research,the conclusion is drawn: different sense of scarcity affects individual environmental protection decision-making,compared with the high scarcity sense group,the low scarcity sense people prefer to make environmental protection decision-making in environmental protection decision-making;Different construal level affects individual environmental protection decision-making.Compared with low construal level people with high construal level prefer to make environmental protection decision-making in environmental protection decision-making.The construal level plays an mediated role in the relationship between the sense of scarcity and environmental decision-making: the higher the sense of scarcity,the more inclined to the direction of low construal level,the more inclined to make non-environmental decision-making,the lower the sense of scarcity,the more inclined to the direction of high construal level,the lower the sense of scarcity,the more likely the subjects to have a higher construal level.More inclined to make environmental decisions.