Misperceptions of Ingroup and Outgroup Values and their Impact on Individual Pro-Environmental Behavior

Burlacu, Teodora (2024) Misperceptions of Ingroup and Outgroup Values and their Impact on Individual Pro-Environmental Behavior. Bachelor thesis, Psychology.

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Abstract

In the current times, where climate change and global warming is a prominent part of our lives, it is of utmost importance to understand why people behave pro environmentally, and how to increase the frequency of such behavior. This paper investigates these questions by looking at misperceptions of ingroup and outgroup biospheric values and their impact on individual behavior. During our investigation, we used the E-PVQ questionnaire to investigate values, as well as a circular economy behavior questionnaire to investigate pro-environmental behavior. The questionnaire was distributed to social sciences (BSS) and economics (FEB) students. We found that FEB students’ values as perceived by BSS students had a bigger impact on BSS students’ circular behavior (r = .56) than BSS students’ values (r = .31). Additionally, FEB students’ behavior was more influenced by their perception of FEB values (r = .11) than BSS values (r = .02). Furthermore, we found that BSS students slightly overestimated their own groups’ biospheric values (M diff. = .09) while massively underestimating the outgroups’ (FEB) values (M diff. = -1.12). FEB students on the other hand overestimated BSS biospheric values (M diff. = .26) while also massively underestimating FEB values (M diff. = -1.2). We found only partial support for our initial hypotheses, due to the influence of stereotypes about the two participant groups we used (BSS and FEB). Future research needs to pay more attention to the influence of stereotypes on value perception of different groups, and their influence on pro-environmental behavior. Keywords: misperceptions, biospheric values, intergroup behavior, pro-environmental behavior

Item Type:	Thesis (Bachelor)
Supervisor name:	Sharpe, E.J.
Degree programme:	Psychology
Differentiation route:	None [Bachelor Psychology]
Date Deposited:	24 Apr 2024 08:16
Last Modified:	24 Apr 2024 08:16
URI:	http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/3314

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