Human activities have had substantial impact on the earth’s climate and ecosystems, and have the potential to
trigger irreversible changes that could be catastrophic for the well-being of humanity. Managing these global
threats requires collective behavioral changes, wherein each individual’s action makes a difference. This implies solving a collective dilemma: individuals should make efforts not to realize a personal gain but to avoid a collective loss.
People do not want to individually afford this cost, and just rely on others’ investments if any. The key question is: How could people be individually motivated to cooperate to reduce the risk of a collective loss?
This project posits that social norms can play a crucial role. Norms motivate people to engage in actions that are individually costly but socially beneficial. Past studies have analyzed norms at a given point in time, thus ignoring their dynamic dimension and in particular their feedback loop with risk and behavior. This represents a major knowledge gap: dealing with collective risk problems requires promoting a long-lasting—not one-shot-cooperation.
The project has two main objectives. The first is to develop a novel theory on social norms to explain how they emerge, spread, and change under collective risks; and to identify the conditions under which they can promote a solution to collective action problems under risk. The second is to understand how norms can be strengthened to be more effective solutions.
