MINDTHEGAP · Mind the gap: understanding the drivers of intention-behaviour gaps in the consumption of meat and single-use plastics
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2019-11-01 → 2022-05-04
- EU contribution
- €184,591
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
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Results in brief
Mind the gap: understanding the drivers of intention-behaviour gaps in the consumption of meat and single-use plastics
Individual lifestyle change has a vital role to play in mitigating the worst impacts of the climate crisis and addressing many of the other serious environmental challenges the world is currently facing including air pollution and biodiversity loss. Increasingly, many Europeans report intentions to reduce their environmentally damaging consumption behaviours such as the overconsumption of meat and single-use plastics. If converted into actions, these pro-environmental intentions could substantially reduce the harm to the natural environment, and in some cases, such as diet, yield personal benefits as well. Against this backdrop, the action ‘Mind the Gap’ investigates the situational correlates of these environmentally significant consumption behaviours and hones in on how situations predict the behaviours of people who hold intentions to act in pro-environmental ways. Shedding light on the situations in which people engage in environmentally significant consumption behaviours can help inform strategies to encourage them to make sustainable choices, for example by highlighting external constraints that get in peoples’ way that need to be addressed for behaviour change to happen, or tailoring interventions to those situations that matter most. Furthermore, as intention-behaviour gaps have been widely documented in consumption behaviours, understanding how situations promote or impede consistency between people’s intentions and actions can help inform strategies to help people follow through. The project’s main objectives are to provide insights into how situational variables predict 1) environmentally significant behaviours and 2) intention-behaviours gaps within this domain. The project meets these objectives through the in-depth study of a number of environmentally significant consumption behaviours that have been identified in the literature as ‘behavioural hotspots’ including the consumption of meat and single-use plastics. A parallel goal of the MSCA fellowship is to develop the capacity and enhance the future career prospects of the individual researcher. This goal was met through the training, networking and dissemination activities undertaken throughout the project's tenure.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
‘Mind the gap’ is designed to advance our understanding of an important behavioural phenomenon; namely, the frequently observed gap between individuals’ intentions and subsequent behaviours. Such gaps have been widely documented in consumption behaviours and often result in people having a larger negative environmental impact than they themselves want or intend. The fellowship probes the drivers of this phenomenon through in-depth study of two areas of human behaviour, meat consumption and single-use plastics, which have a major impact on our shared environment. Existing research exploring intention-behaviour gaps has largely focused on inter-person variation, examining the influence of individual traits on the likelihood of people reporting these gaps. Far less attention has been paid to the inconsistencies that emerge in a given person’s behaviour over time. In the current work, a novel naturalistic monitoring tool will be designed and employed to examine the time-varying factors interact with individual characteristics in ways that help or hinder people from acting as they intend to. The fellowship will be based at University College Dublin and will involve a secondment to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. The applicant will benefit from an extended period of ‘training-through-research’ under the supervision of Professor Liam Delaney – a leading behavioural economist with expertise in naturalistic monitoring – and Mr Faisal Naru – a behavioural public policy expert working at the OECD. This will be complemented by courses designed to develop the applicant’s technical skills, including in multilevel modelling and statistical analysis and programming in R. Widely disseminating the Fellowship’s research output will raise the applicant’s profile as a researcher, allow them to build their academic and policy networks, and significantly enhance the work’s impact on the academy, the world of practice and society more generally.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, DUBLIN · DublinCoordinatorIreland
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union