Linking global shared problems and local individual actions: a global perspective on

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various behaviours, e.g. energy use and conservation, car use and willingness to pay for green energy or intention to purchase green products, supports the suggested model (Klöckner, 2013a).

Based on mostly correlational studies, it is confirmed that intentions are related to behaviour and that intentions are predicted by attitudes, perceived behaviour control, personal norms and social norms. Personal norms are significantly related to social norms, awareness of consequences, ascription of responsibility, values and an environmental worldview.

Figure 2 Abridged CADM as proposed for the PhD project

2.2. Linking global shared problems and local individual actions: a global perspective on

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countries in the recent past (Dicken, 2015). Heavily environmentally burdensome production has been outsourced to developing countries, where insufficient environmental standards lead to local environmental degradation in the present. Equally, the needs of today’s clothing industry in terms of energy, water, land and chemical usage will affect future generations and the environments they will be able to inhabit. But environmental degradation in developing countries, both today and in the future, are distant to consumers in Western countries nowadays.

They see advertisement for a vast array of products, yet do not experience and can barely imagine the negative impacts that stem from the production of these products. The resulting distances can be described in terms of space, time, society and uncertainty (Liberman & Yaacov, 2008). Spatial distance means that the effects of clothing production are physically far away;

temporal distance refers to the time between clothing production and appearance of environmental damage; social distance relates to interpersonal dissimilarity or that effects of clothing production are experienced by individuals who are perceived as less similar; and uncertainty refers to a low level of certainty as to whether and, if so, which environmental problems actually are occurring or will arise in the future. Environmental problems in general, and more specifically environmental problems in clothing production, are perceptually distant on all four categories (Spence, Poortinga, & Pidgeon, 2012). Anything that is distant in such ways cannot be directly experienced by an individual and therefore needs mental representation or construal (Trope & Liberman, 2010). In other words, in order to comprehend the potentially negative impacts of clothing consumption behaviour, and to care about acting in line with collective interests, individuals need to have a basic awareness of them acting in a global collective production and consumption network and that their consumption decisions have an influence on others (von Borgstede, Johansson & Nilsson, 2013). This represents the two

problematic nature of clothing production and consumption in general. It is therefore only for reasons of consistency across this thesis, which is researching ways to limit the environmental burden of clothing, that social problems are not a focus point and the theoretical argumentation build around environmental problems. It needs further thought in how far reduced consumption can help alleviating social problems; see discussion (section 4.5.).

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components of the NAM: awareness of need and ascription of responsibility. However, it remains open how some individuals are more aware than others are, or why some individuals seek information and ascribe responsibility for negative outcomes to their own behaviour, while others fail to do so. Two perspectives inform how such a ‘mental connection to those who are or will be threatened’ (Fritsche et al., 2018) is related to felt moral obligations to act and environmentally friendly behaviour, and both will now be discussed.

First is the approach of reducing psychological distance and ‘proximizing’ environmental problems, which previously was found to increase climate change engagement (Scannell &

Gifford, 2013) and to be connected to higher levels of environmental concern as well as preparedness to act on climate change (Spence, Poortinga, Butler, & Pidgeon, 2011; Spence et al., 2012). However, while Spence et al. (2012) acknowledge the need to focus equally on the global and local impacts of climate change, Scanelle & Gifford (2013) solely focus on

‘localising’ climate change and on impacts for participants’ local areas. A question emerges as to how to reduce psychological distance in circumstances that are inherently spatially distant, e.g. global production. One potential pathway lies within reducing social distance through altered understandings of identity. Identity refers to how individuals see and label themselves (Gatersleben & Steg, 2013). It is formed through processes of self-categorisation and identification, whereby the self is defined in relation to different levels of inclusion: as individuals (personal identity); as members of particular groups (social identity); or, at the highest level of inclusion, as members of the human race (Brewer, 1991). Defining oneself as a member of a specific group leads to ‘in-group’ behavior in favour of the group’s interests (see social identity theory, Tajfel & Turner, 2004 & self-categorization theory, Turner, Oakes, Haslam, & McGarty, 1994). Hence, identification with the most inclusive ‘in-group’ of all humans may contribute to behaviours that serve all humans, such as behaviours that tackle global environmental and social problems.

One psychological concept associated with the notion of a superordinate group of all humans is Identification with All Humanity (IWAH) as the categorization of oneself as part of and with a concern for all humanity (McFarland, Webb, & Brown, 2012). Recent research has refined the concept of IWAH and identified a two-factor structure with the two dimensions self-definition and self-investment (Reese, Proch, & Finn, 2015; Reysen & Hackett, 2016). Self-definition relates to defining oneself as part of the most inclusive group of all humans and group

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similarities, and self-investment stands for solidarity and loyalty with and proactive concern for humans all over the world.

People high in IWAH tend to have an increased interest in events and situations that affect humanity as a whole as well as humans in distant places, which should translate into greater knowledge about such events and situations as well as a wish to learn about them. Previous research has found IWAH to be related to such desires as well as to increased actual knowledge of global concerns (McFarland, 2017). The Psychological Sense of Global Community (Malsch

& Omoto, 2007), a measure highly correlated with IWAH (McFarland & Hornsby, 2015), was found strongly correlated to a measure of global social responsibility. Devine-Wright, Price &

Leviston (2015) found that relatively strong attachment at the global scale (defined as a strong sense of belonging to the area ‘whole world’) relates to an increased belief that climate change is happening and induced by humans. Reysen & Katzarska-Miller, 2013 found global citizenship to be connected to a felt responsibility to take action for a better world. Equally, global belonging was predictor for sustainable behaviours (Der-Karabetian, Cao, & Alfaro, 2014). Together, this research points towards the significance of IWAH for behavioural intentions to act in support of environmental and social issues. At the same time, it shows links between IWAH and the concepts of awareness of need and ascription of responsibility from the NAM. Figure 3 depicts the proposed model, which was the base for Paper I.

Secondly, and somewhat contrary to the ‘proximizing’ strategy, a set of studies failed to consistently show benefits from reducing psychological distance (Brügger, Dessai, Devine-Wright, Morton, & Pidgeon, 2015). Construal Level Theory (Liberman & Yaacov, 2008; Trope

& Liberman, 2010) can offer one possible explanation. CLT theorizes that psychological distance determines the level at which mental construal of situations or objects takes place, which in turn influences the type of information that is used to evaluate them. Increased psychological distance is connected to an increase in higher-level construal, which leads to an evaluation of situations and objects in favour of more abstract and generalized principles as compared to low-level construal, which is connected to contextual information. Moral principles are an example of generalized and decontextualized high-level principles. Under circumstances of greater psychological distance, persons are more inclined to base their judgments and decisions on generalized values and moral principles (Eyal, Liberman, & Trope, 2008). This line of research highlights the possible benefits of a higher-level, abstract construal of humanity for

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the activation of moral principles. It is important to note, however, that other authors have found a reverse pattern, with moral judgments being more pronounced for low-level construals (Gong

& Medin, 2012).

Figure 3 Proposed model including IWAH (see Appendix A, paper I)

2.3. From intention to behaviour: theories and strategies of behaviour change