Together in changing places : the role of social and affective dimensions in conservation and adaptation behavior

Climate change poses extreme threats to human society and individual health and well-being. Behavioral adaptation at the individual level is, therefore, an important component of society-wide adaptation to climate change, which is urgent and multi-scalar. However, the social and psychological factors that motivate individual behavior in response to climate change remain uncertain. In this dissertation, I aimed to contribute to this research area by examining social, cognitive, and affective factors relating to individual conservation, protective health, and adaptation behavior in response to climate-related hazards and environmental change. In Chapter 1, my co-authors and I examined the associations between affective dimensions (i.e., sense of responsibility and place attachment) and other psychosocial factors with coral reef conservation intentions and behaviors. Through a community-engaged study, we surveyed residents and visitors (N=299) on the island of Maui, Hawai'i from October to November 2019. We found several affective dimensions -- specifically natural place attachment, sense of responsibility, and concern for the coral reef ecosystem -- predicted personal conservation behavior, whereas civic place attachment predicted community conservation behavior. We also found that response efficacy predicted and was congruent with a corresponding scale of conservation behavior. In Chapter 2, my colleagues and I explored the role of threat and efficacy perceptions as well as social processes in shaping protective health behavior in response to wildfire smoke. We did so by conducting and analyzing semi-structured interviews (N=45) with residents of Northern California, who were exposed to wildfire smoke between 2018 and 2020. We found that sensory experiences and information informed threat and efficacy perceptions. We also found that social processes, through social norms and social support, interacted in complex ways to influence threat and efficacy perceptions and directly affected protective health actions. Drawing from our findings, we proposed a conceptual framework of wildfire smoke protective behavior. In Chapter 3, we built on findings described in Chapter 2 to assess the extent to which cognitive appraisals (threat and adaptation) and social contextual factors interact with one another and are associated with adaptation behavior to climate-related health hazards, specifically for co-occurring wildfire smoke and COVID-19 threats. We analyzed data collected from June to August 2020 from a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults (N=493). Validating existing behavioral models, we found that both threat and adaptation appraisal were positively associated with adaptation behavioral intentions for both threats. We also found evidence that descriptive social norms were positively correlated with intentions, and that cognitive appraisals mediated the effects of descriptive social norms. Finally, we found evidence that social support may negatively moderate the association of response efficacy and threat appraisal with adaptation behavioral intentions. This dissertation contributes the growing empirical work examining psychosocial factors that are associated with and may influence conservation, protective health, and adaptation behaviors at the individual-level. The findings may be relevant to policymakers, advocates, and communications practitioners designing behavioral interventions promoting such behaviors, and our results may inform the theoretical approach and research questions investigated in future behavioral adaptation research

Advisor: Ardoin Nicole M. (Nicole Michele)
Wong-Parodi Gabrielle
Crowder Larry B.
Durham William H.