The impact of participatory interventions on pro-social behaviour in environmental and natural resource management Evidence from the lab and the field

Juan Felipe Ortiz-Riomalo, Ann-Kathrin Koessler and Stefanie Engel

A chapter in Behavioural Economics and the Environment: A Research Companion, 2023, pp 160-181 from ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics

Abstract: Unresolved social dilemmas that inhibit pro-social behaviour are at the root of most pressing global environmental issues such as climate change, ecological degradation and water scarcity. Meeting these challenges through purely externally imposed (‘top-down’) solutions can be ineffective or even counterproductive. It has been suggested, therefore, that participation of the relevant concerned, affected and interested actors (i.e. the stakeholders) in the environmental policy process is critical to attaining socially desirable outcomes. Yet, the experimental evidence regarding the impacts of participatory interventions on pro-social behaviour is still insufficient and scattered. In this chapter, we contribute to bridging this gap. We review lab and field experimental and quasi-experimental evidence on the potential of participatory interventions to trigger pro-social behaviour in the context of natural resources and environmental management. In sum, the results of the reviewed studies suggest that participatory interventions have the potential to influence actors’ institutional context, understandings, beliefs, emotions and preferences, thereby fostering pro-social behaviour. Ultimately, outcomes would depend on the design of the participatory process and the methods applied to facilitate stakeholders’ interactions. Particularly adequate to foster pro-social behaviour in collective action challenges seem to be interventions aimed at inducing stakeholders to deliberate on their (individual and collective) actions and facilitating the collective development and implementation of concrete solutions for stakeholders’ social dilemmas (i.e. collective-action challenges). Solely inducing problem awareness or consulting stakeholders about their preferred (policy) options seems not enough to trigger and sustain pro-social behaviour.

Keywords: Pro-social behaviour; Social dilemmas; Participatory processes; Environmental policy; Behavioural and institutional economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C90 D79 D91 Q56 Q57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/301878/1/O ... al-behaviour_AM_.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:eschap:301878

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in EconStor Open Access Book Chapters from ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().