How do we make pro-environmental decisions? An eye-tracking study of the role of attitudes and attention in pro-environmental decision-making
(2025) NeuroPsychoEconomics Conference — Location: Dublin, Ireland (4.June.2025)
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- Abstract
- Climate change mitigation is a critical challenge urgently calling on individuals to adopt more pro-environmental behaviors. While prior research has primarily examined the key factors explaining why people behave (un)sustainably, the cognitive processes underlying how they make such decisions remain poorly understood. This preregistered study investigates the role of environmental attitudes and attentional processes during decision-making involving real trade-offs between personal financial rewards and environmental consequences. In a laboratory setting, 114 university students completed an adapted version of the carbon emission task while their eye movements were recorded via eye-tracking, providing direct measures of information acquisition and weighting preceding decision-making. After the task, environmental attitudes were assessed using the Schwartz Value Scale and the Campbell Paradigm. Using mixed-effect models, we found that stronger Campbellian environmental attitudes predicted an attentional prioritization of environmental information (i.e., CO2 emissions), as reflected by a higher proportion of fixation time on this information, and an increasing likelihood of fixating it first once participants became familiar with the task. In contrast, the attention-behavior link appears context-dependent, influenced by factors such as the magnitude of financial incentives and environmental stakes. These findings emphasize the interplay between attentional dynamics, decision context, and environmental attitudes in shaping pro-environmental behavior. Integrating these insights could inform strategies to promote pro-environmental decision-making.
Citations
Bollen, Z., & et al. (2025). How do we make pro-environmental decisions? An eye-tracking study of the role of attitudes and attention in pro-environmental decision-making. NeuroPsychoEconomics Conference, Dublin, Ireland.