summarize physical, psychological, and social factors that together help explain why public understanding in the United States (and presumably in other countries, see point below on need for more behavioral research in developing countries) has not tracked scientific understanding.

Another way of reframing green-growth relevant choices made, for example, by consumers in different countries, is by changing the focus of such decisions from the individual to groups. Decision makers’ default focus of attention may be on themselves (i.e., on their needs, goals, and interests), since processing limitations guide into the direction of minimal effort, and personal needs, goals, and interests are most easily ascertained and most important. However, both the immediate decision environment and the more chronic surrounding cultural environment can modify this attentional focus on the self. Priming of broader social identities (e.g., national identity by a country’s flag or other cultural icons) has long been used in times of war or other conflict to induce people to incur personal sacrifices for the sake of larger collectives and future times. Milch et al. (2007) showed that something as simple as the decision-making unit can focus attention on different goals and motivations. When groups of three people considered a delay of gratification decision (that affected each of them individually as well as the group as a whole) for the first time collectively, they showed much greater patience and less time discounting than either individuals alone or in a group after they had first considered the decision individually.

The “us” in a broader frame does not even need to be interpreted as “I and others.” It can also refer to “my current self and my future self.” Thus Bartels and Rips (2010) showed that individual differences in perceived closeness to future selves had implications for how much people were willing to sacrifice current consumption for future consumption. When people make choices for their future selves, those choices tend to be affected more by rational and less by affective considerations and tend to resemble the choices they would make for other people (Pronin et al., 2008). In an extension, Wade-Benzoni (2009) found that people’s perceived distance to future generations was inversely related to their generosity towards those generations.

Social psychological research has shown that group identity that turns the decision maker and actor from an “I” to a “We/Us” can be induced by very minimal manipulations (Brewer, 1979). In any given decision, such changes in focus from individual identity and individual goals to group identity and group goals will be transient. However, as with any repeated execution of a process or behavior, initially transient and effortful processes become more chronic and automatic over time (Schneider & Chein, 2003). Cultures that emphasize the importance of affiliation and social goals over autonomy and individual goals have been shown to influence the way in which decisions under risk and uncertainty get made (Weber & Hsee, 1998), and different cultural emphases on individualism vs. collectivism are reflected in cultural products that shape chronic attention, from children’s books, to 26