READ seminar: “Nature is mine/ours”: Cultivating psychological ownership of nature to encourage pro-environmental outcomes

his research focuses on a psychological ownership perspective to help mitigate environmental dilemmas. It aims to understand the role of “psychological ownership of nature” (i.e., one’s feeling that nature in a specific place, or a specific element/part of nature, is “mine” or “ours”) in encouraging pro-environmental outcomes. Specifically, it examines what is and how to measure psychological ownership of nature, whether, when, and how psychological ownership of nature promotes pro-environmental outcomes, and whether there are some negative consequences (e.g., psychological entitlement and territorial defence) when eliciting ownership feelings toward nature. Results in general supported the positive effects of psychological ownership of nature on various pro-environmental outcomes, including willingness to sacrifice, volunteering intentions, behavioural commitment, and monetary donation behaviours, with perceived responsibility emerging as a consistent mediating mechanism and alternative mediators (place attachment and self-efficacy) mostly for pro-environmental intentional outcomes. The positive effects on pro-environmental outcomes were almost equivalent among either less or more environmentally-oriented individuals. There was little evidence for a dark side of manipulated psychological ownership of nature on territoriality and entitlement when controlling for the spatial proximity of the natural place. The research broadly advances knowledge by illustrating psychological ownership of nature as an identity-based self-interest approach to realign benefits/costs of environmental (in)actions with the self (i.e., “nature” is mine/ours) to motivate the broad-based public support for nature conservation.

Bio:

Dr Jamin Xiongzhi Wang is a postdoctoral research fellow at the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy, working on the role of unconventional advocates in public support for Australian climate policy. Jamin is interested in how to promote broad-based public support and actions on climate change and nature conservation more broadly, with a focus during PhD on “psychological ownership of nature” to encourage pro-environmental outcomes among different segments of the population. Jamin has general research interests in environmental social psychology, climate policy, and climate change communication, and is keen to create positive changes for the natural environment and society.

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