Social Norms and Global Environmental Challenges: The Complex Interaction of Behaviors, Values, and Policy

Ann P Kinzig; Paul R Ehrlich; Lee J Alston; Kenneth Arrow; Scott Barrett; Timothy G Buchman; Gretchen C Daily; Bruce Levin; Simon Levin; Michael Oppenheimer; Elinor Ostrom; Donald Saari

doi:10.1525/bio.2013.63.3.5

Social Norms and Global Environmental Challenges: The Complex Interaction of Behaviors, Values, and Policy

Bioscience. 2013 Mar 1;63(3):164-175. doi: 10.1525/bio.2013.63.3.5.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Professor, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Box 874501, Tempe, AZ 85281, Ann.Kinzig@asu.edu.
² Bing Professor of Population Studies, Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, pre@stanford.edu.
³ Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, Lee.Alston@colorado.edu.
⁴ Joan Kenney Professor of Economics & Professor of Operations Research, Department of Economics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, arrow@stanford.edu.
⁵ Lenfest-Earth Institute Professor of Natural Resource Economics, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, sb3116@columbia.edu.
⁶ Professor of Surgery and Anesthesiology, Woodruff Health Science Center Administration Building, 1440 Clifton Road NW, Suite 313A, Atlanta, GA 30322, tbuchma@emory.edu.
⁷ Bing Professor of Environmental Science, Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, gdaily@stanford.edu.
⁸ Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Biology, Department of Biology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, blevin@emory.edu.
⁹ Moffett Professor of Biology, Department of Ecology and Evolution, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, slevin@princeton.edu.
¹⁰ Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs, Department of Geosciences and Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Robertson Hall 448, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, omichael@princeton.edu.
¹¹ Distinguished Professor and Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, ostrom@indiana.edu.
¹² UCI Distinguished Professor, Mathematics and Economics, Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-5100, dsaari@uci.edu.

Abstract

Government policies are needed when people's behaviors fail to deliver the public good. Those policies will be most effective if they can stimulate long-term changes in beliefs and norms, creating and reinforcing the behaviors needed to solidify and extend the public good.It is often the short-term acceptability of potential policies, rather than their longer-term efficacy, that determines their scope and deployment. The policy process should consider both time scales. The academy, however, has provided insufficient insight on the coevolution of social norms and different policy instruments, thus compromising the capacity of decision makers to craft effective solutions to the society's most intractable environmental problems. Life scientists could make fundamental contributions to this agenda through targeted research on the emergence of social norms.

Keywords: Behavioral science; assessments; interdisciplinary science; policy/ethics; sustainability.

Abstract

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