Cognitive flexibility and pro-environmental behavior

Habits prevent humans from acting on their pro-environmental attitudes. In order to promote environmentally friendly behavior, habits such as the regular use of the car for short distances need to be broken. Here, I focus on the concept of cognitive flexibility (i.e., the ability to adapt cognitions when environmental demands change) to examine how shifts toward proenvironmental behavior can be fostered against the resistance of habits. To this end, I will first develop a novel laboratory task for the objective assessment of pro-environmental behavior. Subsequently, validation studies will be run to ascertain that behavior on this laboratory task relates to pro-environmental behavior in everyday life. The laboratory task will then be used to test whether cognitively flexible individuals are more likely to overcome their habits and to shift toward pro-environmental behavior. A final set of studies aims to actively enhance cognitive flexibility. One of the best-established means to create a state of cognitive flexibility is by inducing positive mood. Building on this knowledge, it will be investigated whether positive mood has the potential to facilitate shifts toward pro-environmental behavior. In combination, the results obtained from this research project shall elucidate the contribution of cognitive flexibility to the explanation of pro-environmental behavior and highlight opportunities to overcome environmentally harmful habits.