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Social sciences
- Environmental psychology
- Cognitive processes
- Learning and behaviour
- Motivation and emotion
Despite being aware of the pressing threats related to global warming, shrinking biodiversity, and exhaustion of natural resources, we observe a gap between this awareness and commensurate changes in individuals’ behavior. The present proposal aims to explore the role of cognitive effort in pro-environmental behavior as a potential common denominator of the knowledge-behavior gap, and may in turn help to overcome it. Although humans typically follow the law of least effort (also cognitively), various elements modulate the willingness to invest cognitive effort such as subjective value, behavioral control, and specific outcome features. I will systematically manipulate these factors in our recently developed lab paradigm, also assessing inter-individual differences in related traits and real-life pro-environmental behavior. Finally, this multi-method approach will be used to test the effectiveness of two exemplary interventions to promote pro-environmental behavior. By approaching pro-environmental behavior through the lens of cognitive effort and by considering inter-individual differences and real-life behavior, the current project can contribute to understand the knowledge-behavior gap and help devise - and quantify the effect of - behavioral interventions.