Many environmental problems represent social dilemma situations where individually rational behaviour leads to collectively suboptimal outcomes. Communication has been found to alleviate the dilemma and stimulate cooperation in these situations. Yet, the knowledge of the basic elements, i.e. the...

Natural resource management often involves social dilemmas. Institutional and behavioural economics have shown that other-regarding preferences and pro-social behaviour can help overcome such dilemmas. Interventions that induce resource users to consider a perspective broader than their own may...

Solving humanity's social-environmental challenges calls for co-operation by the relevant actors. Hence, involving them in the policy process has been deemed both necessary and promising. But how and to what extent can participatory policy interventions effectively foster co-operation for...

Natural resource management often involves social dilemmas. Institutional and behavioural economics have shown that other-regarding preferences and pro-social behaviour can help overcome such dilemmas. Interventions that induce resource users to consider a perspective broader than their own may...

Participatory vision-building (PVB) seems promising in fostering collective action to overcome complex social-environmental dilemmas and to attain socially desirable outcomes. By assisting the relevant actors in visualising their desired future and imagining how it would feel to be an active...

Unresolved social dilemmas that inhibit pro-social behaviour are at the root of most pressing global environmental issues such as climate change, ecological degradation and water scarcity. Meeting these challenges through purely externally imposed (‘top-down’) solutions can be ineffective or...

This paper discusses how policy interventions not only alter the legal and financial framework in which an individual is operating, but can also lead to changes in relevant beliefs. We argue that such belief changes in how an individual perceives herself, relevant others, the regulator and/or...

Adverse consequences of climate change often affect people and places far away from those that have the greatest capacity for mitigation. Several correlational and some experimental studies suggest that the willingness to take mitigation actions may diminish with increasing distance. However,...