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Taking the Long View: Environmental Sustainability and Delay of Gratification
Author(s) -
Arbuthnott Katherine D.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
analyses of social issues and public policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.479
H-Index - 31
eISSN - 1530-2415
pISSN - 1529-7489
DOI - 10.1111/j.1530-2415.2009.01196.x
Subject(s) - gratification , delay of gratification , salience (neuroscience) , sustainability , temporal discounting , psychology , framing (construction) , context (archaeology) , social psychology , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , geography , ecology , archaeology , impulsivity , biology
Changing human behavior to support environmental sustainability will often require delaying gratification of consumptive goals. This article reviews findings from the delay of gratification and temporal discounting literatures, examining the implications of these results for environmental behavior‐change goals and programs. Evidence indicates that the ability to delay gratification is strongly influenced by the salience and difficulty of immediate versus delayed goals, so context management is vital to facilitate long‐term environmental goals. The influence of belief on long‐term goal attainment and goal framing also suggests a role for targeting individual beliefs and skills in education programs.