• Energy Research

Governments need to develop and implement effective policies to address pressing societal problems of our time, such as climate change and global pandemics. While some policies focus on changing individual thoughts and behaviors (e.g., informational interventions, behavioral nudges), others involve systemic changes (e.g., car bans, vaccination mandates). Policymakers may use system-level policies to achieve socially desirable outcomes, yet often refrain from doing so because they anticipate public opposition. In this article, we propose that people’s psychological reactance driving this opposition is a transient phenomenon that dissipates once system-level policies are in place. Using secondary survey data (N = 49,674) and experimental data (six studies; N = 4,629; all preregistered), we document that psychological reactance to system-level policies is greater when they are planned (ex ante implementation) than when they are already implemented (ex post implementation). We further demonstrate that this effect can be observed across various intervention contexts and provide insights into its underlying psychological mechanisms. Specifically, ex ante versus ex post the system-level policy’s implementation, individuals focus more on the transition-induced personal losses than on the prospective societal outcome gains. In line with this perspective, we show that the decline in reactance to system-level policies after their implementation is mediated and moderated by the salience of personal losses, and that the initial reactance to such policies is mitigated by the salience of societal gains. These findings suggest that the public’s negative reactions to system-level policies are more transient than previously thought and can help policymakers design effective interventions.

Komatsu et al. (1) argue that Van Doesum et al. (2) may have overlooked the role of GDP in reporting a positive association between social mindfulness (SoMi) and the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) at country level. Although the relationship between EPI and SoMi is relatively weaker for countries with higher GDP, that does not imply that the overall observed relationship is a statistical artifact. Rather, it implies that GDP may be a moderator of the relationship between EPI and SoMi. The observed correlation is a valid result on average across countries, and the actual effect size would, at least to some degree, depend on GDP...

To avoid the dangerous consequences of climate change, humans need to overcome two intertwined conflicts. First, they must deal with an intra-generational conflict that emerges from the allocation of costs of climate change mitigation among different actors of the current generation. Second, they face an inter-generational conflict that stems from the higher costs for long-term mitigation measures, particularly helping future generations, compared to the short-term actions aimed at adapting to the immediate effects of climate change, benefiting mostly the current generation. We devise a novel game to study this multi-level conflict and investigate individuals’ behavior in a lab experiment. We find that, although individuals reach sufficient cooperation levels to avoid adverse consequences for their own generation, they contribute more to cheaper short-term than to costlier long-term measures, to the detriment of future generations. Simple “nudge” interventions, however, may alter this pattern considerably. We find that changing the default contribution level to the inter-generational welfare optimum increases long-term contributions. Moreover, providing individuals with the possibility to commit themselves to inter-generational solidarity leads to an even stronger increase in long-term contributions. Nevertheless, the results also suggest that nudges alone may not be enough to induce inter-generationally optimal contributions.