TY - JOUR

T1 - Affective Dilemmas

T2 - The Impact of Trait Affect and State Emotion on Sustainable Consumption Decisions in a Social Dilemma Task

AU - Tarditi, Céline

AU - Hahnel, Ulf J.J.

AU - Jeanmonod, Noémie

AU - Sander, David

AU - Brosch, Tobias

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2018.

PY - 2020/1/1

Y1 - 2020/1/1

N2 - Developing a more sustainable lifestyle is becoming an important challenge of our times; it is thus crucial to understand the factors that drive resource consumption decisions. We investigated the impact of trait affect and state emotion on individual consumption decisions in social dilemma tasks. Affective factors interacted strongly with the specific structural features of the choice situation. In Experiment 1, participants with high trait affect were especially likely to reduce their consumption when resource scarcity increased, but only when the choice was presented in a gain frame. In Experiment 2, induced guilt led to reduced consumption in the gain frame in participants with high trait affect, whereas induced pride led to increased investments in the loss frame in these participants. Our research highlights the adaptive function of affective factors in decision making in social dilemma tasks and illustrates how emotions may be leveraged to promote more sustainable resource consumption.

AB - Developing a more sustainable lifestyle is becoming an important challenge of our times; it is thus crucial to understand the factors that drive resource consumption decisions. We investigated the impact of trait affect and state emotion on individual consumption decisions in social dilemma tasks. Affective factors interacted strongly with the specific structural features of the choice situation. In Experiment 1, participants with high trait affect were especially likely to reduce their consumption when resource scarcity increased, but only when the choice was presented in a gain frame. In Experiment 2, induced guilt led to reduced consumption in the gain frame in participants with high trait affect, whereas induced pride led to increased investments in the loss frame in these participants. Our research highlights the adaptive function of affective factors in decision making in social dilemma tasks and illustrates how emotions may be leveraged to promote more sustainable resource consumption.

KW - core values

KW - decision framing

KW - decision making

KW - emotions

KW - social dilemma

KW - sustainable consumption

KW - trait affect

KW - Psychology

KW - Sustainability sciences, Management & Economics

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85050552904&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/0013916518787590

DO - 10.1177/0013916518787590

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85050552904

VL - 52

SP - 33

EP - 59

JO - Environment and Behavior

JF - Environment and Behavior

SN - 0013-9165

IS - 1

ER -