2nd year PhD presentations

10:00-10:45 via Teams: Click here to join the meeting
Christian Elbæk: 'The moral consequences of relative resource scarcity'   
Supervisors: Panagiotis Mitkidis & Lene Aarøe (Pol. Sc.)
Discussants: Michael Zaggl & John Thøgersen

Abstract
Individuals around the globe experience different forms of resource scarcity in terms of aspects such as hunger, thirst, or financial strains. While research over the last decade have firmly established that such scarcity reduces cognitive functioning and increases temporal discounting and risk-taking behavior, the findings on the moral consequences of scarcity still remain mixed. Consequently, the goal of this PhD project is to firmly establish specifically how different forms of relative resource scarcity affect moral decision-making behaviors in individuals. Here, I will present one of such efforts in the form of a pre-registered systematic review and meta-analysis, which specifically investigates how different forms of material resource scarcity affects moral economic behavior. In this paper, together with my co-authors, we analyze a comprehensive dataset including 44 published and unpublished studies comprising a total of 6,921 respondents across four distinct types of material scarcity: financial scarcity, physiological scarcity, scarcity reminders, and lower social class. Our findings show that acute scarcity significantly increases the propensity to engage in unethical economic behavior (gfinancial = .24, gphysiological = .39, greminders = .32). Importantly, we find no evidence that chronic experiences of scarcity in the form of low social class affect unethical economic behavior (gsocial class = .02). These results appear robust to the influence of publication bias and contextual sensitivity. We discuss how these findings advance our understanding of the psychological and moral consequences of scarcity and elaborate on implications for public policy.

11:00-11:45 via Teams: Click here to join the meeting
Ditte Mogensen: 'Decision making when energy renovating single-family houses'
Supervisors: John Thøgersen & Per Telling (virksomhedsvejl.)
Discussants: Jakob Lauring & Dorthe Døjbak Håkonsson

Abstract
Households constitute one of the top energy consumption sectors in Western countries, and therefore major energy-relevant investment decisions made by households are essential to reach climate goals (Kastner & Stern, 2015). These investments include renovating the home with energy efficient technologies (e.g. insulation or new windows) or renewable energy systems (e.g. solar panels or heat pumps). Yet, installation rates of energy efficiency measures are slower than reported drivers of energy renovations would suggest, which is expressed in the widely acknowledged energy efficiency gap, also often labeled the intention-behavior gap (Bamberg, 2013). A growing number of authors highlight social practice theories as alternative to behavioral approaches emphasizing individual choice and motivation in decision making in explaining the energy efficiency gap (Klöckner & Nayum, 2017; Kurz, Gardner, Verplanken, & Abraham, 2015; Spotswood, Chatterton, Morey, & Spear, 2017; Wilson, Crane, & Chryssochoidis, 2015). We take here a pragmatic approach and draw on both applied behavioral theories and practice theory in attempt to strengthen understanding of energy renovation and the factors that drives and inhibits decision implementation. We conducted a qualitative research which is found particular useful to explore decisions that are not always conscious and recognized by the holder (Malhotra & Birks, 2007). Results show that energy renovation does not share practice constituting elements with more common and frequently performed amenity renovations. Consequently, energy renovation is associated with its own set of structural drivers and barriers. Cognitive biases and heuristics in the decision implementation are identified with implications for subsequent intervention design.

Everyone is welcome!