社会与工程心理学研究室知识库

面对环境风险，人们往往在环境保护和自我保护冲突时选择后者。环境保护与自我保护的相对失衡带来了巨大的环境代价，这提示我们函需寻找对环境保护行为具有独特促进作用的因素。从代际决策的角度，环保行为可以看做现在自己和未来他人(世代)之间的利益选择，它包含时间(现在和未来)和人际(自己和他人)两个维度。通过回顾相关文献，我们提出如下假设:1)增强未来世代与现在自己的关联程度(即未来世代连续性)可以促进环境保护行为;2)增强未来自己与现在自己的关联程度(即未来自我连续性)则会促进自我保护行为。为此，我们共开展了三项研究。

研究一采用经验取样法，初步探索了在雾霆情境中未来取向对环境保护行为和自我保护行为的影响。研究一对242名雇员进行了为期两周(10个工作日)的网络问卷调查。多层路径分析发现未来取向与环境保护行为和自我保护行为均成正相关。

研究二进而将未来取向在人际维度上细化为未来世代连续性和未来自我连续性，采用两阶段问卷调查，探究了未来世代连续性和未来自我连续性对环保行为和自我保护行为的分别影响。研究二对303名雇员进行了两次网络问卷调查，前后时间间隔一周。路径分析发现未来世代连续性与环境保护行为正相关，并且未来世代连续性完全中介了空气污染知觉与环保行为的关系;然而未来自我连续性与自我保护行为无显著相关。

研究三采用行为实验，利用时间旅行任务操纵未来世代连续性和未来自我连续性来进一步考察两种连续性对环保行为和自我保护行为的分别影响。研究三招募了293名大学生被试。实验采用被试间设计，被试被分成三组，分别为未来他人组、未来自我组和控制组。被试首先想象自己正在进行时间旅行并写下想对未来他人或未来自我说的话，然后完成捐款任务、健身任务和礼物选择任务。实验结果发现给未来他人写信的被试相比控制组给环保组织的捐款金额更高，但给未来自我写信的被试相比控制组并未表现出显著更高的健身意愿。研究三验证了研究二的结果，结果发现增强未来世代连续性有助于提高环保行为，但未来自我连续性与自我保护行为的关系不明确。

本研究从现实问题出发，颇具新意地从代际决策的视角区分了未来世代连续性和未来自我连续性对环境保护行为和自我保护行为的不同作用，研究发现增强未来世代连续性对环保行为的独特促进作用。研究结果有助于解决环保领域中“知行分离”的困境，并为环境问题的风险管理提供了借鉴。

Faced with various environmental risks, people often choose self-protection over environmental protection especially when the two comes into conflict. The enormous environmental costs associated with the relative imbalance between environmental protection and self-protection make it particularly important to identify factors that exert a unique influence in promoting either environmental protection or self-protection. According to the model of intergenerational decision-making, pro-environmental behavior can be seen as a choice between the interests of present self and future others (generations). Thus intergenerational decision-making consists of two dimensions, namely the intertemporal dimension (e.g., now vs. future) and the interpersonal dimension (self vs. others). Drawing upon prior literature, we propose that 1)enhancing connection to future others (i.e., intergenerational connectedness) exclusively increases pro-environmental behavior, 2)whereas enhancing connection to future self (i.e., future self-continuity) increases self-protective behavior. To validate the above assumptions, we conducted three studies.

Study 1 explored the relationship between future orientation and pro-environmental and self-protective behavior using an experience sampling design. Study 1 surveyed 242 employees across two work weeks. Multilevel path analyses showed that future orientation was positively correlated with both pro-environmental behavior and self-protective behavior.

Study 2 further divided future orientation according to the interpersonal dimension. Study 2 conducted a two-wave survey to investigate the influence of connection to future others and future self on pro-environmental behavior and self-protective behavior. We surveyed 303 employees twice, separated by one week. Results revealed that participants with closer connection to future others reported significantly more pro-environmental behavior, while participants with closer connection to future self did not report more self-protective behavior.

Study 3 conducted a laborotary experiment, manipulating intergenerational connectedness and future self-continuity to examine their impact on pro-environmental behavior and self-protective behavior. Study 3 recruited 293 college students, who were later randomly assigned to three groups. Participants were primed into thinking what they would like to say to strangers or themselves when met 20 years later in a mental time travel before finishing contribution task, workout task and gift task. Results revealed that participants whose intergenerational connectedness was enhanced contributed more to environmental protection organization; nevertheless, participants whose future self-continuity was enhanced were no more willing to pay for gym than the control group.

Overall, our research showed that enhancing connection to future others contributed to pro-environmental behavior. Our results yield profound practical implications for designing intervention strategies to increase pro-environmental and self-protective behaviors by highlighting the exclusive role of intergenerational connectedness and future self-continuity.