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The Roles of Mental Construal Level Theory in the Promotion of University Students' Pro-environmental Behaviors

Although green technological innovation is designed to combat climate change, recent research suggests that increased attention to technological innovations might decrease climate change risk perception and reduce pro-environmental behaviors due to the feeling of being assured, which is referred to...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Jia, Yanhui, Tian, Jie, Liu, Haiyue
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8581237/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34777121
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.735837
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author Jia, Yanhui
Tian, Jie
Liu, Haiyue
author_facet Jia, Yanhui
Tian, Jie
Liu, Haiyue
author_sort Jia, Yanhui
collection PubMed
description Although green technological innovation is designed to combat climate change, recent research suggests that increased attention to technological innovations might decrease climate change risk perception and reduce pro-environmental behaviors due to the feeling of being assured, which is referred to as risk compensation behavior. Although there has been a growing interest in reducing the risk compensation effect related to climate change, the academic literature in this area is very limited. In this study, we propose a psychological intervention to mitigate a sample of university students' (N = 1,500) irrational response to green technological innovation so as to promote their pro-environmental behaviors. Our experiments identify students' mental construal level as an important psychological factor that, when combined with a proper message framing strategy of introducing new green technologies, can remedy their irrational response to new green technologies. Our findings suggest that highlighting the new technology as playing a preventive/promotional role related to climate change can mitigate risk compensation behavior and eventually promote students' pro-environmental behaviors when they are at a high/low mental construal level.
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spelling pubmed-85812372021-11-12 The Roles of Mental Construal Level Theory in the Promotion of University Students' Pro-environmental Behaviors Jia, Yanhui Tian, Jie Liu, Haiyue Front Psychol Psychology Although green technological innovation is designed to combat climate change, recent research suggests that increased attention to technological innovations might decrease climate change risk perception and reduce pro-environmental behaviors due to the feeling of being assured, which is referred to as risk compensation behavior. Although there has been a growing interest in reducing the risk compensation effect related to climate change, the academic literature in this area is very limited. In this study, we propose a psychological intervention to mitigate a sample of university students' (N = 1,500) irrational response to green technological innovation so as to promote their pro-environmental behaviors. Our experiments identify students' mental construal level as an important psychological factor that, when combined with a proper message framing strategy of introducing new green technologies, can remedy their irrational response to new green technologies. Our findings suggest that highlighting the new technology as playing a preventive/promotional role related to climate change can mitigate risk compensation behavior and eventually promote students' pro-environmental behaviors when they are at a high/low mental construal level. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-10-28 /pmc/articles/PMC8581237/ /pubmed/34777121 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.735837 Text en Copyright © 2021 Jia, Tian and Liu. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Jia, Yanhui
Tian, Jie
Liu, Haiyue
The Roles of Mental Construal Level Theory in the Promotion of University Students' Pro-environmental Behaviors
title The Roles of Mental Construal Level Theory in the Promotion of University Students' Pro-environmental Behaviors
title_full The Roles of Mental Construal Level Theory in the Promotion of University Students' Pro-environmental Behaviors
title_fullStr The Roles of Mental Construal Level Theory in the Promotion of University Students' Pro-environmental Behaviors
title_full_unstemmed The Roles of Mental Construal Level Theory in the Promotion of University Students' Pro-environmental Behaviors
title_short The Roles of Mental Construal Level Theory in the Promotion of University Students' Pro-environmental Behaviors
title_sort roles of mental construal level theory in the promotion of university students' pro-environmental behaviors
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8581237/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34777121
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.735837
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