Extrinsic Value Orientation and Decreased Sustainability of Shared Resources: The Moderating Role of Situational Characteristics

Geurim Han,Junghwa Kim,Sun Park

doi:10.3390/su10072199

Abstract

In the present research, we investigated the roles of both personal values and situational characteristics in predicting environmentally irresponsible behavior using the tragedy of commons dilemma. Graduate or undergraduate students (n = 138) visited the laboratory as a group of four and completed measures of personal values and played a commons dilemma game online. Participants were led to believe that they were playing with the other three participants, but they were in fact playing with three bot players that were manipulated to use the shared resources either cooperatively or competitively. It was found that people who put more emphasis on extrinsic values (financial success, appealing appearance, and social recognition) relative to intrinsic values (personal growth, affiliation, and community contribution) consumed more shared resources than their counterparts. However, this link was significant only in the competitive condition, suggesting an interaction between personal and situational factors. Supplementary analyses indicate that financial success and community contribution are particularly important in predicting environmentally irresponsible behavior.

Highlights

The natural environment today is faced with serious threats, such as climate change, melting glaciers, the destruction of the rainforests, and the chemical waste in the oceans, to name a few
We conducted a series of multiple regressions to test three-way (EVO × condition × participant gender) interactions, with greediness as a dependent variable
With serious environmental problems around the world, it is becoming more and more important to preserve natural resources and encourage environmentally responsible behavior. We investigated both personal and situational factors that are associated with environmentally irresponsible behavior and thereby decreased sustainability of public resources

Summary

Introduction

The natural environment today is faced with serious threats, such as climate change, melting glaciers, the destruction of the rainforests, and the chemical waste in the oceans, to name a few. We investigated the roles of both personal and situational factors in predicting environmentally irresponsible behavior in the context of the tragedy of commons dilemma [3]. In the tragedy of the commons dilemma [3], people share limited environmental resources (e.g., trees of the forest) and decide how much of the shared resources they will consume (e.g., felling trees). If individuals pursue their own interests, the shared resources will be quickly depleted and soon there will be no resources left for anyone; in contrast, if they focus on preservation of the shared resources and restrain consumption, they will not make any profit for themselves

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