Abstract
Ecological sustainability is the defining challenge of our time. Here we suggest a methodological approach that could help to investigate how environmental behavior (transport behavior, energy consumption, food consumption, goods consumption, wasting) dilemmas can be overcome on an individual level in real life by using smartphones to collect daily behavioral data in a field-experimental setup. Previous related studies are reviewed and we discuss how the boundaries of what can be done with smartphones for data collection and experimental purposes can be pushed further to allow for complex behavioral studies. Results from a pilot study are presented to discuss the feasibility and potential of this approach. The pilot shows that studying social dilemma behavior via smartphones is feasible and has potential value as a behavioral intervention tool.
Highlights
In 2015 the United Nations implemented its new Sustainable Development 15-years agenda
We suggest a methodological approach that could help to investigate how environmental behavior dilemmas can be overcome on an individual level in real life by using smartphones to collect daily behavioral data in a field-experimental setup
At the core of this challenge lies the social dilemma problem: a preserved environment is a common good of benefit to everyone; to achieve sustainability, cooperation is required from the majority
Summary
In 2015 the United Nations implemented its new Sustainable Development 15-years agenda (https:// sustainabledevelopment.un.org). Several of the 17 Global Sustainable Goals are dedicated to preserving the environment (e.g. mitigating climate change, protecting marine systems, protecting forest systems etc.). The challenge that nations worldwide face is how to make the transition towards a sustainable. At the core of this challenge lies the social dilemma problem: a preserved environment is a common good of benefit to everyone; to achieve sustainability, cooperation is required from the majority. This paper suggests to study environmental behavior in real life social dilemma situations by exploiting smartphone technology to collect new types of “living laboratory” [43] data. The novelty is to fuse “big” data (multiple format data collected via smartphones) with a theory-based fieldexperimental approach to study human behavior in real life
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