Environmental “Behavior Change”: Information, Values, or Windows of Opportunity?
Janet Lorenzen
Department of Sociology
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Date: Wednesday, September 25th, 2013
Time: 12:30-2:00 pm
Location: Blake 131, Cook Campus
Please click on the following link to see the flyer:
Different
perspectives on behavior change include the assertions that information
shapes decision-making (rational choice theory), values influence
behavior (drive theory), and habits guide social action (practice
theory). This talk draws on data from 45 in-depth interviews and
participant observation with three groups: (1) voluntary simplifiers,
(2) religious environmentalists, and (3) green home owners. Each of
these groups is attempting to go green and transition to a less carbon
intensive lifestyle. The main finding supports practice theory,
suggesting that changes in life (ie., having children or moving to a new
city) which disrupt habits create windows of opportunity for people to
re-think problems, change their practices, and set new paths for future
action.
Janet
is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Sociology at Rutgers
University. She is primarily interested in strategic action and
processes of social change. She studies the micro- and meso-level
mechanisms which enable macro-level change. Her dissertation research
focuses on the ways in which people reduce their consumption and go
green. Her research is funded by a dissertation research grant from the
Rutgers Initiative for Climate and Society and a dissertation writing
fellowship from the American Association of University Women. Her work
has been published in Human Ecology Review, Sociological Forum, and
Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change.
To see additional events, please visit our website: http://www.humanecology.rutgers.edu/events.asp
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