Context

As part of my Bachelor's degree, I conducted a research project (graded 81%) exploring the role of social norms and economic preferences in influencing students' individual willingness to act pro-environmentally.

Challenge

Global warming has become one of the most pressing economic policy issues of our time; understanding the influences of individual willingness to combat global warming is critical to combat this global cooperation problem.

Approach

Intervention design Investigated whether a social norm intervention that corrects a student's misperceptions about the actual prevalence of behaviours and social norms among a relevant reference group - students' peers - could causally increase their willingness to act pro-environmentally.

Experimental design Developed and executed an online experiment via Qualtrics to collect cross-sectional data.

Data analysis Conducted statistical analysis of collected data using STATA.

Outcome

As a result of this empirical evidence from 228 students in the UK, a more diverse picture may be drawn of the influences on students’ individual willingness to act pro-environmentally.

The findings can be applied to design interventions to increase individual willingness to act pro-environmentally among young people in the UK, and in turn, improve environmental outcomes.