Understanding Norm Clusters and Their Dynamics in the Transition to Renewable Energy

了解标准集群及其在向可再生能源过渡中的动态

• 批准号: 2018063
• 负责人: Elke Weber
• 金额: $ 49.7万
• 依托单位: Princeton University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-09-01 至 2023-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2018063&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Understanding; Norm; Clusters; Their; Dynamics

This project seeks to understand how people's worldviews and actions are impacted by the beliefs and actions of others. It examines this question in an important context for our nation's security, health, and natural environment: support for renewable energy and offshore wind. It measures people’s perceptions of a broad range of beliefs and actions they hold of others and examines how these beliefs cluster together and create a social reality about what is normal that shapes one's own opinion about energy policy and technology. The studies also examine what happens to this cluster of beliefs as external events modify one of the beliefs. Not only is the domain selected, offshore wind support, better understood by this work, but the ways that people are impacted by others' actions and beliefs are clarified broadly. Given that interventions for many social problems in health, education, environmentalism, security and other domains seek to harness how we are influenced by others in order to create positive social change, this deeper understanding of how social influence can inform and improve these interventions can help benefit addressing many contemporary social problems.This project seeks to understand social norms as a clustered network of connected social perceptions. Theoretical and applied research on social norm perceptions or interventions often only study or utilize one norm at a time. Social norms, however do not exist in isolation. Instead, norms co-exist in a network of other descriptive or normative beliefs, forming clusters. This research clarifies how perceptions of social norms are connected and the causal relationship of those connections, pursuing the following questions: How are networks of social norm perceptions organized? Do norm clusters have a hierarchical structure, and do higher-order beliefs dictate more specific lower-order beliefs? What happens when one of these norms gets modified, either by an experimental manipulation or by some naturally occurring change(s) in the environment? Does such a change in the perception of a norm only influence beliefs or behaviors directly connected to it or does its effect spread throughout the norm's cluster as activation does in a semantic network? The team explores how these diagnosed characteristics of norm clusters can be used to shift individual behavior or belief. In a series of studies over 2 years, the scholars examine perceptions of norms surrounding the topic of offshore wind energy and relevant policy support. Using online survey experiments and a combination of convenience samples, representative samples and longitudinal data, the team assesses the structure of norm clusters, which normative and descriptive beliefs are more related to others, and investigates how manipulating one norm in a cluster can affect the perception of norms it is connected to. These insights are used to compare multiple norm intervention techniques to see which is most successful at increasing understanding. Rather than simply intervening on a single norm, understanding the norm cluster for offshore wind allows the team to better understand the most fruitful place to intervene and reveals multiple points for leverage on this issue, so the team may identify a cleaner, more sustainable, and economically viable energy system. Beyond offshore wind, social norm interventions are used across a variety of domains. This research provides a methodology and theoretical framework for applied researchers that would enable them to understand how and where to best intervene in a norms cluster to enhance understanding.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该项目旨在了解人们的世界观和行为如何受到他人的信念和行为的影响，它在我们国家的安全、健康和自然环境的重要背景下研究了这个问题：它衡量了人们对可再生能源和海上风能的支持。这些研究还考察了他们对他人持有的各种信念和行为的看法，并研究了这些信念如何聚集在一起并创造出一种关于什么是正常的社会现实，从而形成了一个人自己对能源政策和技术的看法。信念随着外部事件的改变而改变这项工作不仅更好地理解了其中一项信念，即海上风电支持，而且还广泛阐明了人们受他人行为和信念影响的方式。 、环保主义、安全和其他领域寻求利用我们如何受到他人的影响来创造积极的社会变革，这种对社会影响力如何告知和改进这些干预措施的更深入的了解有助于解决许多当代社会问题。该项目旨在将社会规范理解为相互关联的社会观念的集群网络。关于社会规范认知或干预措施的理论和应用研究通常一次只研究或利用一种社会规范，但它们并不是孤立存在的，而是在其他描述性或规范性信念的网络中共存，形成集群。这项研究阐明了社会规范的认知是如何相互联系的以及这些联系之间的因果关系，并探讨了以下问题：社会规范认知的网络是如何组织的？ -当这些规范之一出现时会发生什么？通过实验操作或环境中自然发生的变化而被修改？对规范的看法的这种变化是否只影响与其直接相关的信念或行为，或者其影响是否会传播到整个规范集群？该团队探索了如何利用规范簇的这些诊断特征来改变个人行为或信念。在两年多的一系列研究中，学者们研究了围绕海上风能主题的规范认知。采用网上调查实验与便利化相结合的相关政策支持。通过样本、代表性样本和纵向数据，该团队评估了规范集群的结构，哪些规范性和描述性信念与其他信念更相关，并研究了操纵集群中的一个规范如何影响对其相关规范的感知。用于比较多种规范干预技术，看看哪种技术在增进理解方面最成功，而不是简单地对单一规范进行干预，了解海上风电的规范集群可以让团队更好地了解最有效的干预位置并揭示多个点。为了解决这个问题，团队可以除了海上风电之外，社会规范干预措施还应用于各个领域，为应用研究人员提供了方法论和理论框架，使他们能够了解如何以及在何处采取最佳措施。干预规范集群以增强理解。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

Americans experience a false social reality by underestimating popular climate policy support by nearly half

美国人低估了近一半的流行气候政策支持，体验到了错误的社会现实

• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-32412-y
• 发表时间: 2022-08-23
• 期刊: Nature Communications
• 影响因子: 16.6
• 作者: Sparkman, Gregg;Geiger, Nathan;Weber, Elke U.
• 通讯作者: Weber, Elke U.