Psychology 2990A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Social Dilemma, Environmental Psychology, Lottery

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2990A/B
• Professor: Doug Hazlewood

Document Summary

Define: environmental psychology is concerned with: understanding the effects of natural built & social environments on people, understanding effects of people on environments: How can we change their behaviour: we"re dealing with a classic social dilemma. Resource management dilemma: take too much of a limited resource. Note: with rmd, take as much as possible to maximize our short term benefits; with pgd, give as little as possible to minimize our short term costs: change the short-term payoff structure: Charge a fee for every bag of garbage. Toll-free roads (or separate lanes) for people who use cars. Increase perceptions of trust (each member of the group must believe that the other members will cooperate; minimizes sucker effect ). Observing others who are cooperating (e. g. everyone"s using blue boxes to recycle). Increase communication between group members (e. g. p. 264). Communication must focus on cooperation (not blaming each other for wanting to compete!