SECOND SUMMER SCHOOL ON THEORIES IN ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC PSYCHOLOGY Aarhus University, 2 – 6 July, 2012
Aarhus University Business and Social Sciences Department of Business Administration
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Content
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 3 Overview of STEEP workshops ................................................................................................... 4 Values, norms, and sustainable food .......................................................................................................... 4 Changing behaviour via community approaches ................................................................................. 6 Reducing household energy consumption ............................................................................................... 8 Breaking car habits: promoting bicycling and public transport ................................................ 10 Stress and the city: restorative environments ..................................................................................... 12
Overview of STEEP keynote lecturers ................................................................................... 14 Linda Steg, University of Groningen, the Netherlands .................................................................... 14 Normative considerations encouraging pro-‐environmental action ............................... 14
Ellen Matthies, University of Magdeburg, Germany ......................................................................... 14 Changing sustainability relevant routines in organizations -‐ from intervention studies to diffusion of change .......................................................................................................... 14
Henk Staats, Leiden University, Netherlands ...................................................................................... 15 Stress and the city: How to allow for restoration ................................................................... 15
Geertje Schuitema, Aarhus University, Denmark ............................................................................... 15 Policy acceptance and adoption of environmental technologies .................................... 15
Bas Verplanken, University of Bath, UK ................................................................................................. 16 Habit: From overt action to mental events ................................................................................ 16
Anders Biel, University of Gothenburg, Sweden ................................................................................. 16 Habitual and Value-‐Guided Behaviour ........................................................................................ 16
Annika Nordlund, Umeå University, Sweden ....................................................................................... 16 Factors influencing environmentally relevant behaviours ................................................ 16
Marino Bonaiuto, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy ..................................................................... 17 Food reputation ..................................................................................................................................... 17
Agnes van den Berg, University of Groningen, Netherlands ......................................................... 18 Health benefits of nature ................................................................................................................... 18
John Thøgersen, Aarhus University, Denmark .................................................................................... 18 Spillover of pro-‐environmental behaviour: Generalizing, a license to anti-‐social behaviour, or neither? ........................................................................................................................ 18
Evaluations and experiences ................................................................................................... 19 Students’ evaluations and experiences ................................................................................................... 19 Lecturers’ experiences ................................................................................................................................... 22 Issue sponsors’ experiences ......................................................................................................................... 23
Sponsors .......................................................................................................................................... 24 Links and next summer school ................................................................................................ 25
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Introduction
The first Summer school on Theories in Environmental Psychology (FirstSTEP) was
organised in 2009 by the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. The FirstSTEP
turned out to be a great succes. We accepted the challenge to organise the second
Summer school on Theories in Environmental and Economic Psychology (STEEP).
STEEP took place in Aarhus, Denmark from 2 till 6 July, 2012.
One aim of the summer school was to involve young scholars actively in the field,
and teach them relevant theories and skills in applying theories to address societal
problems in the area of sustainability and consumption. Students were working on
real-life sustainability problems that were presented by five Danish organisations that
deal with sustainability-related problems in their organisation. Students worked in
workshops on a research proposal to address these problems. The workshops were
lead by ten well-known scholars, who also each gave a keynote presentation during
the week, to provide students with an overview of what is currently happening at the
research front within this field.
Another aim was to create opportunities for PhD students to collaborate with senior
scholars in their field of research and to meet with other PhD students that work in the
same area. A mixed and very international group of students attended the summer
school: 50 PhD students from 18 different countries (including New Zealand, Canada
and Mexico) came to Aarhus. We see this as a great achievement in itself, because it
shows that sustainability is still a topic that has a world wide interest.
Looking back to the summer school, we had a fantastic week and the summer school
was a great succes! Especially, the enthousiasm and dedication of students and
lecturers made this summer school a fantastic experience. As organizers, we are also
extremely grateful for the great ground work that was done for the FirstSTEP in
Groningen and the invaluable experience and guidance we could draw on from here.
We thank all participants, lecturers, issue sponsors, financial sponsors and supporters
who contributed to the success of this summer school!
On behalf the organising STEEP committee,
Geertje Schuitema, John Thøgersen and Alice Grønhøj
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Overview of STEEP workshops
On the first day of the summer school, representatives of five Danish organisations,
called ‘issue sponsors’, presented a real-life sustainability-related issue they deal with
in their daily business. In five different workshops, students worked on a research
proposal to address the issues raised by the organisation. On the last day, the students
presented their research proposal to all participants, lecturers and the issue sponsors.
Below we describe briefly the issues that were presented and the approach in each
workshop to address the issues.
Values, norms, and sustainable food
Lecturers: Linda Steg and Marino Bonaiuto
Participants: Livia Marian, Susanne Pedersen, Toula Perrea, Chad Baum, Marilia
Bonzanini Bossle, Anna Evangelista, Angelika Kufleitner, Marleen Onwezen, Zeinab
Rezvani, Angela Ruepert, Muriel Verain
Issue sponsor: Danish Agriculture and Food Council
According to the Danish National Plan for Organic Farming and Food production, the
organic farmed land area in Denmark should be doubled by 2020, compared to 2007.
This implies that consumers should switch food consumption from conventional food
to organic food. The questions raised by the Danish Agriculture and Food Council in
this connection were: How can we influence public opinion and behaviour about
organic farming and organic consumption? What kind of values and norms must we
appeal to? What is the smartest way to act in general and when the debate is going
on?
The workgroups’ point of departure was to discuss various behavioural models which
include norms, values, opinions and behaviour, among others. It ended up with Figure
1, emphasising that efficacy (the ability to perform a certain behaviour) and habit
(automaticity, context cued behaviour) influence behaviour, together with the
person’s values and opinions or attitude.
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Figure 1. Conceptual model
With Figure 1 in mind, the work group developed a number of research questions,
which are relevant to answer on the way to answering the questions raised by The
Danish Agriculture and Food Council:
• RQ1: What are the current opinions of organic food? Opinons are here
understood as the trade-off between perceived positive and negative
consequences of purchasing organic food.
• RQ2: Which values predict opinions of organic food? Values are defined as
desirable goals, varying in importance, that serve as guiding principles in
people’s lives (i.e., biospheric (nature/environment), altruistic (others),
egoistic (self) and hedonic (pleasure) values).
• RQ3: Are there any differences between consumer groups and product
categories?
• RQ4: Which interventions are effective in increasing organic food purchase?
The intervention can be information or change of context when performing the
behaviour targeting specific consumers or products.
The workgroup felt it needed more knowledge about the current opinions and
behaviours in the Danish population before it could advice The Danish Agriculture
and Food Council on how it should act in the public debate on the subject.
The workgroup did a small pilot study interviewing 15 consumers of both organic and
conventional food, asking them about their view on organic foods and the rationale
behind their own behaviour. Based on this, the workgroup suggested four phases in
the data collection; the first one being a pilot study to get more initial information
about Danes’ values and norms linked to opinion and behaviour in relation to
consumption of organic food. In order to get into depth with this, the second phase
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was to consist of a number of focus groups with different segments in order to
understand rationales for behaviour (i.e., consumers of conventional and organic
foods). The third phase involved collecting purchase data (i.e., receipts) and surveys
from a large number of consumers to get input for possible segmentation and making
profiles of consumer groups. The fifth and last phase consisted of an
experiment/intervention, building on knowledge from the previous phases targeting
different consumer groups’ values, norms, opinion and behaviours in order to make
them buy more organic food.
Changing behaviour via community approaches
Lecturers: Ellen Matthies and John Thøgersen
Participants: Madeleine Broman Toft, Charlotte Blythe, Anna Nordén, Piermario
Pattitoni, Wenceslao Unanue, Kerstin Weimer, Karina Landeros-Mugica, Vanja
Međugorac, Marko Milovanović, Hilda Zara
Issue sponsor: ProjectZero
ProjectZero is a project of the municipality of Sønderborg to be CO2 neutral in 2029.
To reach their goal, infrastructural changes are made for example by installing wind
turbines and solar panels. In addition, efforts are made to change the mindset of the
inhabitants of Sønderborg, which succesfully result in increasing involvement of the
society in the project. Currently, ProjectZero intends to expand the amount of on-
shore wind turbines in the area, which leads to some resistance by the public. The
question raised here was that even though people seem to favour visible solutions in
general to reduce CO2 emmission, they tend to be against large visible solutions such
as wind turbines. How can the organisation of ProjectZero influence the mind-set and
behaviour of the inhabitants in Sønderborg in order to create a positive attitude
towards the project and the changes needed to become CO2 neutral, such as increasing
the number of wind turbines?
This workshop focused on the acceptance of windpower, as this was expressed as an
urging problem in order to achieve the goal of reducing Sønderborg´s CO2 emissions
25% by 2015. The point of departure was to study earlier research conducted on wind
power acceptance. A literature study showed that people’s evaluation of the positive
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and negative outcomes of the installation of wind turbines and their location (i.e., they
prefer minimal visibility) has a large impact on the acceptance of wind turbines.
Furthermore, studies showed that people’s participation in their community in terms
of place identity, sense of ownership, fairness and trust influence acceptances levels
of wind turbines.
Based on the literature about spillover effects, in this workshop a study to test the
potential relation between people’s pro-environmental behaviours and the likelihood
of accepting implementation of wind turbines was suggested. If such a spillover effect
would be found, projectZERO could expand their work, increasing Sønderborg’s
citizens’ pro-environmental behaviour in order to increase acceptance of windpower.
We proposed a study design in two phases starting with a qualitative exploration of
anticipated consequences and experienced participation among the citizens of
Sønderborg. This should be followed by a panel survey to investigate the current
acceptance or resistance, towards the installation of wind turbines in certain areas of
Sønderborg. The panel study should also explore people’s pro-environmental
behaviour.
To increase people’s participation in their community (i.e., trust, sense of ownership,
participation and fairness) we suggested a path that built on projectZERO’s already
running projects.
Figure 2: Possible path to acceptance of wind power in the municipality of Sønderborg
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Reducing household energy consumption
Lecturers: Annika Nordlund and Geertje Schuitema
Participants: Ellen Van der Werff, Richard Bret, Danny Taufik, Peter Jacobsson,
Goytom Abraha Kahsay, Malte Nachreiner, Arnold Oliver, Richard Vann, Ikerne
Aguirre-Bielschowsky, Johanna Le Conte
Issue sponsor: NRGi
NRGi is the main electricity company in Aarhus and its surroundings. NRGi is
actively trying to involve its customers in their own electricity consumption, because
it is assumed that knowledge and awareness in one’s own electricity consumption
leads to electricity conservation. Electricity conservation is important for NRGi to
reach the national targets and to prepare households for the Smart Grid. To increase
the knowledge and awareness of their customers in their electricity use, NRGi is
installing smart meters in the homes of their customers. This is why NRGi asks: what
are the preconditions for customers to engage in their electricity consumption? Can
smart meters be used to involve customers and increase their knowledge and perhaps
change their attitudes? Which features or services can be linked to the smart meter
and how should they be promoted?
Point of departure of the study that was proposed in this workshop was the suggestion
that the information presented by smart meters is a way to increase consumer
involvement with their energy consumption. Following the literature, involvement is
defined as the extent of an individual’s perceived importance or personal relevance
towards an entity (i.e., energy consumption). Involvement is assumed to lead to
behavioural change. We propose a study that examines how tailored information can
be used to increase consumers’ involvement in their energy use by tailoring the
information to their value orientation.
Goal Framing theory states that people have different motivations (goals) to be
involved in their energy consumption. People can be motivated by their hedonic
goals, aimed at making them feel bettter (e.g., reducing my energy use makes me feel
good), their personal gains (e.g., reducing my energy use saves me money) or because
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the environment and other people benefit (i.e., normative goal, e.g., reducing my
energy use is good for the environment).
Which motivation goal is most salient differs for people. Therefore, we propose an
intervention study in which we start with assessing which motivation (goal frame) is
most salient for each individual customer of NRGi, which will result in four
conditions (based on different goal frames). Based on this assessment, tailored
information is provided to them via a Smart Meter, for example, people who mainly
focus on the gain goal will be given information on the financial consequences of
conservation and people in the normative goal frame will receive informtion on the
consequences of conservation for future generations. In addition, four control groups
will be created, to test the result of the intervention.
During the data collection, involvement, energy use and webactivity will be
measured. Data collection will be done in three points in time: one week after the
onset of the intervention program (t+1 week), to capture immediate effects from the
intervention. One month after the onset of the intervention program (t+1 month) and
six months after the onset of the intervention program (t+6 months) to measure the
long-term effects of the intervention (see Figure 3).
Figure 3. Research design
Immediate Measure
t + 1 Week
1. Involvement Index (Subjective)
2. Web Activity In-dex (Objective)
3. Energy Usage
(Objective)
Intermediate Measure
t + 1 Month
1. Involvement Index (Subjective)
2. Web Activity Index (Objective)
3. Energy Usage (Ob-
jective)
Long-Term Measure
t + 6 Months
1. Involvement In-dex (Subjective)
2. Web Activity In-dex (Objective)
3. Energy Usage
(Objective)
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Breaking car habits: promoting bicycling and public transport
Lecturers: Bas Verplanken and Anders Biel
Participants: Pietro Lanzini, Stefan Baumeister, Christine Boomsma, Angela
Francke, Ines Thronicker, Joseph Kantenbacher, Ingo Kastner, Christiane Kramer,
Ernst Noppers, Ayca Berfu Unal, Nicole Aitken
Issue sponsor: Midttrafik
This workshop was sponsored by Midttrafik, the company who is responsible for
public transport in the area of Mid Jutland and the city of Aarhus. Midttrafik is an
active organisation in running campaigns and implementing different measures to
encourage people to make a modal shift from car to public transport. For example,
they have improved bus schedueles, the coordination between different transportation
modes and their services for example in terms of travel information, internet on
busses and improved comfort. In addition, they run marketing campains, mainly
aimed at getting a better image as an environmentally friendly company, such as the
‘Verdens Redder’ (‘save-the-world’) campaign. Midttrafik specifically asks if their
communication with their customers is effective to attract new and keep existing
customers and how their communication can be improved.
In the workshop, a very practical approach was adopted in order to give the sponsor
an answer to very specific questions. Participants of the workshop opted for the
following methodology: a) assess the effectiveness of past campaigns of Midttrafik,
b) collect and process information about citizens´perception about public transport, as
the basis of a segmentation of (potential) Midttrafik customers.
To collect the required information, workshop participants undertook a pilot study in
the city of Aarhus, to test their theoretical assessment. Interviews with a convenience
sample of around 70 citizens were conducted. Questions included an evaluation of
awareness and perceived effectiveness of the ‘Verdens Redder’ campaign, statements
of perceived strengths and weaknesses of public transport system in Aarhus,
suggestions for improvements and mental associations with transport by bus (i.e.,
respondents indicated the first thing that came up to mind hearing the word ‘bus’).
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The assessment of past campaigns of Midttrafik resulted in the conclusion that a
thorough assessment of the effectiveness of past promotional and current
communicational campaigns (e.g. the ‘Verdens Redder’ campaign) are lacking at the
moment. Further reasearch cannot be developed untill there is a deep understanding of
the reaction of current and potential future customers to previous campaigns that they
have been exposed to.
Results of this pilot also gave input for an assessment of the information that
customers of Midtraffik need. Consumers’ need for information was based on their
position on two dimensions: motivation to change transport patterns and effective
ability to change transport patterns. This leads to four main customer segments, who
have need for a specific type of information (Figure 4)
Guidelines for the sponsor included specific suggestions on how to tailor future
communication campaigns to the four separate segments. In addittion, a toolkit was
provided with examples of best practices implemented by other public transport
organisations.
Figure 4. Segmentation of (potential) customers of Midttrafik Note: Y=Youth, M=Middle-age, O=Old
Ability to Use Bus
Motivation to Use Bus
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Stress and the city: restorative environments
Lecturers: Agnes van den Berg and Henk Staats
Participants: Goda Peraviciute, Elina Lice, Yanhui Mao, Kathrin Röderer, Sarah
Lilian Stephen, Leonie Venhoeven, Kayleigh Wyles
Issue sponsor: COWI
COWI is an international consulting firm that provides state-of-the-art services within
the fields of engineering, environmental science and economics. COWI’s main focus
is on a sustainable urban development. Part of their focus is on the creation of
restorative environments in urban areas, because this is assumed to reduce stress
levels and improve people’s health. In general, COWI’s question was: do restorative
environments indeed result in reduced stress levels and improved public health and
what are the economic benefits of restorative environments? In addition, COWI has
introduced a concept of a ‘Slow city’, which refers to an innovative development in
urban design and planning with the key aim to increase the restorative potential of
cities. Developed as a response to a stressful and hectic life in modern cities, the
concept of slow cities is assumed to be a key to restorative urban life. But is that
really so? Are slow cities indeed restorative? Although being widely accepted, the
assumption that slow cities are restorative cities has not yet been tested. These
questions became the core focus of the workgroup.
To start off, a thorough literature review was carried out on the concept of slow cities.
This gave a broader overview of how slow cities have been defined so far, and
provided examples of the recent developments of slow cities. This step was
particularly important, as, being yet at its infancy stage, the concept of a slow city
needs to be clearly defined. Besides a literature review, a pilot study was carried out
in order to disclose how non-experts define slow cities and what associations they
hold regarding such a development. The findings were interesting and demonstrated
that, although ascribing similar characteristics to slow cities (e.g., much greenery,
much public space), people anticipated different affective experiences if living in such
a city. There was a lack of consensus among participants of whether slow cities can
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indeed be restorative cities, which highlighted the importance of studying this
question more in depth.
Restorative potential is a complex entity to study and can become a real challenge for
practitioners. Therefore, attempts were made in the workgroup to provide COWI with
the most relevant theoretical background and with potential methods for measuring
restorativness of slow cities. The Attention Restoration Theory (ART, Kaplan &
Kaplan, 1989) was proposed, and its relevance to the current purposes was explained.
Specifically, ART defines what kind of characteristics an environment should contain
in order to be restorative, and how one could measure these characteristics. In line
with the theory, we described two potential experiments that would allow
practitioners to actually measure the restorative potential of slow cities. As the end
result of the workgroup, theoretical background and a tool package for experiments
were combined in a detailed research proposal, which was handed in to COWI.
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Overview of STEEP keynote lecturers
During the week all ten lecturers gave a keynote lecture. Below an overview of the
abstracts from their presentations. These presentations can be viewed online.
Linda Steg, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
Normative considerations encouraging pro-‐environmental action
Acting pro-environmentally is often associated with higher costs (e.g., money, time,
or effort). Therefore, it is important to understand how to motivate people to act pro-
environmentally, even though this might be costly in the short term. Research
conducted by our group on how normative considerations can be strengthened to
promote pro-environmental actions is presented. Among others, it is discussed to what
extent and how values and norms affect pro-environmental choices.
Ellen Matthies, University of Magdeburg, Germany
Changing sustainability relevant routines in organizations -‐ from intervention studies
to diffusion of change
Already in the early 1990s, Paul Stern encouraged further research about energy using
behaviour and energy-related decision making in organizations. However, there are
only few empirical approaches in this area until today, and there seems still a lack of
systematic knowledge concerning psychological interventions in the organisational
context. Given the situation that a relevant part of CO2-emissions stems from the
public sector, in 2008 we launched the transdisciplinary project “change” (together
with engineers, sociologists and practitioners) focusing on the potential of energy
relevant routines at universities and other organizations of the public sector. A pre-
study identified the importance to provide decision makers with knowledge
concerning potentials in user behaviour and perspectives for standardized campaigns.
After five years of data collection at 20 organizations, we are able to draw
conclusions about the potentials of psychological interventions, standardized
campaigns, and acceptance of psychological approaches in the public sector.
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Henk Staats, Leiden University, Netherlands
Stress and the city: How to allow for restoration
We live in an urbanizing world. As of 2010 more people in the world live in cities
than in rural areas, and this trend will continue and intensify (United Nations Habitat,
2010): more people will live in bigger cities. Many psychological studies of urban
city life emphasize that life in the city is more taxing than life in more rural
settlements (Lederbogen et al. 2011). Amount of stimulation, information overload
(Milgram, 1970), noise and crowding in and around the home (e.g., Guite, Clark, &
Ackrill, 2006), in public transportation (Evans & Wener, 2007), and in public places
in general (Moser & Corroyer, 2001), are all more prevalent in urban than in suburban
or rural environments. One way or another, city life imposes demands on its
population that periodically need compensation. Compensation is here referred to as
psychological restoration, the process that helps to renew the capabilities a person
ordinarily possesses but has depleted.
In this lecture, examples are given of research, partly by others, partly by the
presenter, that look at options to increase the restorative quality of different urban
settings. Examples will be the home, the neighbourhood, urban parks, a forest, the
city centre in general and cafés in particular. The main argument is that both physical
and social factors in the environment together create conditions for restoration.
Geertje Schuitema, Aarhus University, Denmark
Policy acceptance and adoption of environmental technologies
Environmental policies are generally policies that are aimed at improving the
environmental quality, by targeting either curtailment behaviour (changes in user
behaviour that typically have to be made on a frequent basis) or efficiency behaivour
(referring to the adoption of energy-efficient solutions). An important precondition for
environmental policies to be implemented is the public acceptability of policies, and,
in case of changing efficiency behaviour, consumers’ adoption of new technologies.
This presentation focuses on different factors that explain the acceptability of
environmental policies and consumers’ adoption of new energy-efficient
technologies.
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Bas Verplanken, University of Bath, UK
Habit: From overt action to mental events
Habits are almost "unseen" elements of everyday life. In spite of the fact that many of
the behaviours which are of interest to social, health, consumer and environmental
psychologists are highly repetitive, habit has not received the attention it deserves.
This presentation focuses on questions such as why habits are important to study, how
habits relate to prevalent attitude-behaviour models, and which implications habits
may have for interventions to change behaviours. It then moves on to habits of
thinking, and present some research that demonstrates why such habits matter and
relate to a range of issues, such as body image and eating disorder problems, self-
esteem, job stress, or worry and anxiety. This talk ends with a flavour of Buddhism,
and discusses mindfulness as a promising avenue to deal with dysfunctional mental
habits.
Anders Biel, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Habitual and Value-‐Guided Behaviour
Society increasingly requests that individuals adopt environmentally benign
behaviour. Information campaigns purported to change people’s attitudes are often
regarded as a prerequisite to installing such changes. While such information may be
a necessary step, it is not sufficient by itself. We argue that much everyday behaviour
with environmental consequences is habitual, and that little attention is given to
information directed toward changing these habitual behaviours. In other instances,
behaviour is guided by values in a more reflective process. However, other
information besides environmental issues may draw attention and affect behavioural
choice. Based on research, implications for behavioural change are discussed.
Annika Nordlund, Umeå University, Sweden
Factors influencing environmentally relevant behaviours
This keynote lecture presents results from research on how mainly attitudinal factors,
but also personal capabilities, habits, and contextual factors function as motivating
and/or hindering factors in relation to different types of environmentally relevant
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behaviours. Examples of behavioural scenes covered in the keynote are general pro-
environmental behaviour, more specific behaviours related to car use, train use,
alternative fuels vehicles, and lastly issues related to forest management, the urban
fringe forest, and preferences of forests scenes and the preferred activities in these
forest scenes.
Marino Bonaiuto, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
Food reputation
Reputation, typically studied on more traditional social agents (e.g., individuals,
companies, countries) is extended to food: conceiving food and drink as social agents
with a reputation implies accounting for their perceived impacts on people, society,
environment. Food reputation (FR) is defined as the individual representation about
current characteristics of food as a social agent: it corresponds to all the
representations about that food that a person has - i.e., beliefs, attitudes, values,
attributions of causality, etc. - with particular attention to its antecedents and its
consequences, its production and its effects.
Hypothetically, FR may be based on direct and indirect (i.e., more or less socially
mediated) past experience the individual has of that the food, and on the consequent
future expectations developed about its effects. Conversely, FR might determine its
overall attractiveness, also with reference to possible alternatives.
23 specific indicators, integrated into 6 synthetic indicators and accompanied by 2
general indicators, constitute a modular measuring tool, the “Food Reputation Map".
By means of Kiviat diagrams, the instrument can be used to identify the reputational
profile of single food targets at different possible levels, such as products or
stakeholders (e.g., stakeholder categories, food brands, food products, food
categories, food regions or districts, etc.). This can be used to carry out synchronous
comparisons (different targets at the same time) or diachronic monitoring (the same
target at a later date). Furthermore, relationships among the specific or synthetic
dimensions and the general ones can be analyzed.
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Agnes van den Berg, University of Groningen, Netherlands
Health benefits of nature
The idea that contact with nature can promote health and well-being has a long
history in Western as well as non-Western cultures. This lecture gives an overview of
empirical research on health benefits of nature. The lecture starts with an introduction
to the concepts of ‘health’ and ‘nature’, followed by some examples of historical and
contemporary practices in the use of nature for health purposes. Then the empirical
evidence for health-nature relationships is reviewed, along with a discussion of the
possible mechanisms underlying these relationships. Particular focus is on stress
reduction as the most important and well-documented explanation of health benefits
of nature. Reflections on the practical value of this emerging research area and its
relevance for theoretical and methodological issues in environmental psychology
concludes the talk.
John Thøgersen, Aarhus University, Denmark
Spillover of pro-‐environmental behaviour: Generalizing, a license to anti-‐social be-‐
haviour, or neither?
This presentation introduces the phenomenon of spillover of pro-environmental
behaviour and its theoretical foundations, summarizes the evidence
supporting/challenging spillover, and discusses possibilities for optimizing the
chances of positive spillover effects. It ends with a discussion on future research on
spillover including key research questions and promising research designs.
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Evaluations and experiences
In this part we summarise how STEEP was evaluated and experienced by the
participants, lectures and issue sponsors.
Students’ evaluations and experiences
After the final session, students filled in an evaluation form with open questions and
evaluation statements on 5-point scales from 1 (completely disagree/ very
dissatisfying) to 5 (completely agree/ very satisfying).
Students generally expressed satisfaction with the content of the summer school and
the reading material that was provided (Figure 5). Responding to the open questions, a
majority of students mentioned that the summer school was well balanced in terms of
keynote lecturers, workshops and social events. Some felt that there had perhaps been
a too strong focus on quantitative reasearch methods and too little discussion of
qualitative methods.
Figure 5. Overall evaluation of the summer school
Next, we asked students to evaluate the content of the workshops and the keynote
lectures (Figure 6). Overall, students were satisfied with the content of the workshops
and they generally felt that there had been a pleasant working atmosphere. The
1
2
3
4
5
The content of the
summer school
corresponded with what
was outlined beforehand
The content of the
summer school was easy
to follow
The duration of the
summer school was
sufOicient
The used material was
satisfactory
The scope of the used
material was good
Overall, how satisOied are
you with the summer
school?
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assessment of the workload in the workshops differed. Some students suggested that
the summer school should have lasted 1 or 2 days more. The keynote lectures were
positively evaluated, ranging from 3.8 till 4.8 on the 5 point scale.
Figure 6. Satisfaction with the workshops and keynote lectures
In general, students thought the summer school was stimulating, inspiring and useful
for their future projects (Figure 7). This is a very positive result, as one of the aims of
the summer school was to provide PhD students with the opportunity to collaborate
with senior scholars in their research field and to meet with other PhD students who
are working in the same area. A vast majority of the students mentioned that meeting
other PhD students and lecturers was one of the most positive aspects of the summer
school.
1
2
3
4
5 Overall content of the
workshop
Balance between theory
and em
pirical
application
Pleasant work
atmosphere
Keynote lectures
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Figure 7. Experiences and usefulnes of summer school
The organisation and provided facilities were in general positively evalated, although
there are some points of attention (Figure 8). First of all, the availability of wireless
Internet and printing facilities was problematic during the week. Moreover, students
felt that their accomodation was located too far from the summer school venue.
Figure 8. Satisfaction with organisation of summer school
1
2
3
4
5
The summer school was
stimulating
I enjoyed the summer
school
The summer school
broadened my future
perspectives
My learning outcome
The usefulness for m
y PhD project
The inspiration for
future projects
1
2
3
4
5
Accomodation
Workshop room
s
Access to facilities
Lecture hall
Num
ber of breaks
General information that
was provided
Availability of contact
persons
Information on the
website
Overall organisation
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Finally, the food and social programme were in general evaluated positively (Figure
9). Regarding breakfast, there is room for improvement, mainly because breakfast
was not provided at the accomodation, but at the venue of the summer school. For
four evenings a social evening programme had been organised, to make sure students
and lecturers had the opportunity to interact informally.
Figure 9. Evaluation of food and social programme
Lecturers’ experiences
We received a letter of one of the lecturers, Linda Steg, describing her expiriences of
the summer school. We print the letter below, to illustrate how inspiring the summer
school was from the lecturer’s perspective.
“The Summer School on Theories on Environmental and Economic Psychology
(STEEP) was an inspiring event. Like the first Summer School on Theories on
Environmental Psychology (STEP), which was organized in Groningen, many
PhD students applied for participating in the STEEP, and the organizers could
not admit all those interested. It was a real pleasure and very inspiring to work
with a group of very talented students, and to develop a research plan that was
put forward by practitioners from Denmark. As a teacher, I enjoyed to see that
students are well able to develop a broad set of initial ideas in a coherent
research plan within a week, and to build on the expertise of the different PhD
1
2
3
4
5
Breakfast
Lunch
Social program
me
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students in the group. Besides, the STEEP offered a nice social program, so that
students and lectures had time to get to know each other, and to set a basis for
future collaborations. I am very happy that various scholars have indicated to
be interested in organizing the next STEP, and I am confident that the next STEP
will again be a great and inspiring event.”
Issue sponsors’ experiences
The issue sponsors respondend very positively after the summer school. In the
following are some quotes to illustrate how useful sponsors saw the day for them and
that it opens potential possibilities for future collaborations:
“(…) It was a very interesting presentation, you could really see that the
participants had worked hard to reach a good result. Looking at the future of
our project, the most interesting thing about the presentation was perhaps
that many of the presented ideas are things we are planning to do or are doing
right now. It is really nice to be confirmed that we are thinking along the right
lines and are moving in the right direction” (Christian Eriksen, project manager
from ProjectZero, translated from Danish)
“Again, thanks for an interesting day, we hope that we can maintain a good
relationship and keep each other informed about the many exciting
opportunities, something that we are always open for” (Christian Eriksen,
project manager from ProjectZero, translated from Danish)
“Thank you so much for your work on the Midttrafik project! It was very
interesting and useful to hear the Phd-‐students’ research into the public
transport subject. (…) I intend to take their work further to my marketing and
planning departments, and use the findings in our further work.” (Kristiana
Stoyanova, Midttrafik)
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Sponsors
The aim of this summer school is to enable PhD students who work in the field of
Environmental and Economic Psychology to meet and to collaborate. We are pround
that 50 PhD students from 18 different countries (including New Zealand, Canada and
Mexico) attended the summer school. One of the reasons why students from all over
the world were able to attend the summer school is that we could keep the tuition fees
low. The low tuition fee was only possible due to the (financial) support of our
sponsors. We would like to express our gratitute to:
Aarhus University, Department of Business Administration
AARHUS UNIVERSITY
International Association for Applied Psychology (IAAP), Division
4: Environmental Psychology
The International Confederation for the Advancement of Behavioral
Economics and Economic Psychology (ICABEEP), which is the
umbrella organisaition of the International Association for Research
in Economic Psychology (IAREP) and Society for the Advancement
of Behavioral Economics (SABE)
The Environmental Psychology Division of the German
Psychological Association (DGPs)
The International Association People-Environment Studies (IAPS)
AARHUS UNIVERSITY
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Links and next summer school
More information about STEEP can be found on our website, including the full
programme, videos of the keynote lecturers and pictures of the week.
STEEP was organised by the Virtual Community on Sustainability and Consumption,
which is a community of reserachers that joins in collaborations to help reduce the
tension between sustainability and consumption. To find more information about the
Virtual Community or to become a member, please visit the website.
The first Summer school on Theories in Environmental Psychology (FirstSTEP) was
organised in 2009 by the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. More information
about this summer school (e.g., programme, keynote lectures) can be found on the
website of the FirstSTEP.
The next STEEP will be held in the summer of 2014 or 2015. As soon as we know
where this event will be hosted, we will announce it on our website. If you are
interested in organising or sponsoring the next summer school, please feel free to
contact Linda Steg.
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