首页
登录
职称英语
How Psychology Can Help the Planet Stay Cool[A] "I’m not convinced
How Psychology Can Help the Planet Stay Cool[A] "I’m not convinced
游客
2024-01-31
10
管理
问题
How Psychology Can Help the Planet Stay Cool
[A] "I’m not convinced it’s as bad as the experts make out... It’s everyone else’s fault... Even if I turn off my air conditioner, it will make no difference." The list of reasons for not acting to combat global warming goes on and on. This month, American Psychological Association (APA) released a report highlighting these and other psychological barriers standing in the way of action. But don’t despair. The report also points to strategies that could be used to convince us to play our part. Sourced from psychological experiments, we review tricks that could be used by companies or organisations to encourage climate-friendly behaviour. In addition, psychologist Mark van Vugt of the Free University of Amsterdam describes the elements of human nature that push us to act unselfishly.
[B] As advertisers of consumer products well know, different groups of people may have quite distinct interests and motivations, and messages that seek to change behaviour need to be tailored to take these into account. "You have to target the marketing to a particular sector of the population," says Robert Gifford of the University of Victoria, another of the report’s authors. The wealthy young, for instance, tend to be diet conscious, and this could be used to steer them away from foods like cheeseburgers—one of the most climate-unfriendly meals around because of the energy it takes to raise cattle. So when trying to convince them to give up that carbon-intensive beef pie, better to stress health benefits than the global climate.
[C] Though conservative authorities have been known to attack such efforts, characterising them as mind control, experiments indicate that people are willing to be persuaded. From participants in our experiments, we’ve never heard a negative feedback," says Wesley Schultz of California State University. In fact, according to John Petersen of Oberlin College, we are used to far worse. "Compared to the overwhelming number of advertising, it seems milder than anything I experience in my daily life," he says. [D] Deep down, most of us want to fit in with the crowd, and psychologists are exploiting this urge to encourage environmentally friendly behaviour. Researchers led by Wesley Schultz at California State University and Jessica Nolan, now at the University of Scranton, have found that people will cut their electricity usage if told that their neighbours use less than they do. In one experiment, the researchers left information with households in San Marcos asking them to use fans rather than air conditioners at night, turn off lights and take shorter showers. Some messages simply stressed energy conservation, some talked about future generations, while others emphasised the financial savings. But it was the flyers (传单) that asked residents to join with their neighbours in saving energy that were most effective in cutting electricity consumption.
[E] In another study, the researchers told households what others in their neighbourhood used on average. High users cut their consumption in response, but low users increased theirs. The problem disappeared if the messages were reinforced with sad or smiling faces. The smiles received by the residents who were already saving energy provided sufficient encouragement for them to keep doing so.
[F] Most people seem to conserve energy if provided with real-time feedback on how much they are using. But feedback can be too immediate. For instance, Janet Swim has a General Motors car that shows her mileage (里程) per gallon each time she accelerates. It’s just not very useful, she argues, because it’s hard to place that momentary piece of feedback in the context of her overall driving behaviour and fuel efficiency. In contrast, the Toyota Prius display shows mileage per gallon over 5-minute intervals for the previous half-hour. With that contextual information, people can experiment with different driving styles to see how they affect mileage, and even compete with themselves to improve over time. The 2010 Honda Insight goes one better, flashing up an image of a prize to reward economical driving. The benefits of feedback are not restricted to car gadgets (小装置). Studies show that devices that display domestic energy usage produce savings of between 5 and 12 per cent.
[G] People have to be persuaded to act on climate change even though the benefit won’t be felt for decades. Research by David Hardisty and Elke Weber of Columbia University suggests ways to achieve this. Hardisty and Weber have found that people respond in exactly the same way to decisions involving future environmental gains and losses as they do when making financial decisions. This allows psychologists’ knowledge of how to control financial decision-making to be brought into play. For instance, schemes that give people a cash payment in advance for insulating (使隔热) their home will work better than those promising long-term savings, even if the people receiving cash end up paying a little more in the long run.
[H] And because we are generally more worried about future losses than we are impressed by future gains, messages are more effective if framed to warn people that they will lose $500 over 10 years if they don’t follow a particular course of action to limit climate change than if they are told they’ll be $500 better off if they do take action.
[I] As social animals, we like to interact with others and take inspiration from their actions. Psychologists are working out how to exploit this to spread behaviours that will help limit climate change. "My sense is that social networks are going to be important," says Swim. Allowing people to document successes in saving energy on their Facebook pages could drive change among their Mends, and the Oberlin team is considering integrating this into its urban residence experiment. Tawanna Dillahunt and colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University, think such opportunities presented by Facebook can be combined with our liking for animals. Inspired by the attachment that people can develop towards Tamagotchi virtual pets, the team is testing the compelling power of a "virtual polar bear" standing on a sheet of floating ice that grows bigger as people adopt environmentally friendly behaviours such as taking shorter showers. Initial results suggest the polar bear has pull. [br] Flyers related with neighbours’ behaviour are a very effective way to convince residents to cut electricity consumption.
选项
答案
D
解析
根据Flyers,residents及electricity consumption等信息可定位至D段最后一句。该句用强调句型(it was…that)说明附有邻居行为的传单在减少用电量上是最有效的,所述与本题一致,故D为本题答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3409900.html
相关试题推荐
[originaltext](5)Havingjustdepartedthereddish-lookingdwarfplanetPlu
Skipthatthirdhelpingofroastbeef,savetheplanetanddoyourheartaf
Skipthatthirdhelpingofroastbeef,savetheplanetanddoyourheartaf
Skipthatthirdhelpingofroastbeef,savetheplanetanddoyourheartaf
Skipthatthirdhelpingofroastbeef,savetheplanetanddoyourheartaf
Skipthatthirdhelpingofroastbeef,savetheplanetanddoyourheartaf
HowPsychologyCanHelpthePlanetStayCool[A]"I’mnotconvinced
HowPsychologyCanHelpthePlanetStayCool[A]"I’mnotconvinced
HowPsychologyCanHelpthePlanetStayCool[A]"I’mnotconvinced
HowPsychologyCanHelpthePlanetStayCool[A]"I’mnotconvinced
随机试题
Atwhattimeofdaydidthefirestart?Intheearly______[br]WhenwastheG
[originaltext]W:Let’sgointothepenguinhouse.M:Great!Ireadthatthey’ve
诊断中度慢性阻塞性肺病(COPD),FEV占预计值%是A.FEV≥80% B.
根据《建设工程工程量清单计价规范》(GB50500-2013),现浇混凝土工程
在长期的生产活动中,我国北方农民总结出“白露早,寒露迟,秋分种麦正当时”的农谚。
医院内获得性肺炎,最常见的致病菌是A.革兰阴性杆菌 B.肺炎球菌 C.厌氧菌
下列关于法人,表述错误的有()A.法人是一种社会组织 B.法人拥有
76-87题暂缺,等待更新,请直接选择选项A,略过本题A.无 B.无 C
下列哪项因素会影响到地租与地价的关系?()A.税收 B.利率 C.房价
《史通》
最新回复
(
0
)