The Impact Of Status Quo Variability On Environmental Protection Efforts Under The Background Of Resource Scarcity And Its Spillover Effect

In daily life,we will encounter various problems of scarcity of resources,such as scarcity of water resources,scarcity of funds,scarcity of time,etc.It is a common phenomenon,and everyone will inevitably encounter the problem of scarcity of resources in life.Scarcity of resources profoundly affects human behavior.When resources are scarce,individuals may take the path of reducing scarcity or control the path of recovery.Based on the self-regulation theory of resource scarcity,status quo mutability is an important factor affecting human behavior.When the mutability of the status quo is high,individuals tend to take the path of reducing scarcity;when the mutability of the status quo is low,individuals tend to take the path of restoring control.However,less attention has been paid to the mutability of the status quo in the existing studies,and it is limited to the study of economic issues,and has not been studied in other fields.Today’s world is facing various environmental problems,threatening the development of human beings.It is the common responsibility of all of us to protect the environment.Like economic problems,the improvement of environmental problems requires individual efforts.Unlike economic problems,the behavioral consequences of individual efforts to improve the environment often occur in the more distant future.To this end,we designed an environment-related experimental situation to explore whether the mutability of the status quo will have a consistent impact on people’s behavior to protect the natural environment when individuals perceive resource scarcity,and whether it can verify the assumptions of the scarcity self-regulation model.However,environmental protection can not only rely on a single Pro environmental behavior,but also pay attention to the linkage between different pro environmental behaviors.Driving other pro environmental behaviors by one Pro environmental behavior is a more cost-effective way to promote people’s Pro environmental behavior and manage the environment.Therefore,in Study 2,the effects of subjects’ performance in previous environmental tasks on subsequent consumption tendencies and the role of environmental care were investigated.Study 1 aroused the participants’ sense of resource scarcity,and designed the task of "save desert withered trees" to examine the impact of resource scarcity and the mutability of the status quo on the participants’ effort.The results of the study showed that the participants in the scarcity group worked harder in high status mutability than in low status mutability,and in low mutability,there was no significant difference in the degree of effort between the scarcity group and the control group.Study 2 examined the effect and mechanism of the participants’ efforts in the previous task of protecting the environment on the subsequent consumption tendency.The results of Study 2a once again demonstrate the effects of status quo mutability and resource scarcity on efforts to protect the environment,as well as their interaction on propensity to consume.At the same time,the results of the mediation test show that the moderating effect of status quo mutability is significant.In the condition of high status quo mutability,resource scarcity significantly positively predicts the degree of effort,while the degree of effort significantly negatively predicts consumption propensity.In the condition of low status quo mutability,,resource scarcity negatively predicts the propensity to consume.The results of study 3b found that in the condition of high status quo mutability,resource scarcity significantly positively predicted the degree of effort,and the degree of effort significantly positively predicted environmental concerns,while environmental concerns significantly negatively predicted consumption propensity,which was significantly negative.The higher the level of environmental concern in the test,the stronger the green consumption tendency.Combining the results of Study 1 and Study 2,this study draws the following conclusions:(1)When faced with resource scarcity,individuals in high status quo mutability will choose to reduce the path of scarcity and make more efforts to improve the status quo.Consistent with the self-regulatory model of resource scarcity.(2)The subjects in the high status mutability group showed a higher level of effort than the subjects in the low status mutability group.In the follow-up study,it was found that the effort level of the subjects in this group significantly positively predicted environmental concerns,and environmental concerns significantly negatively predict consumption tendencies,which to a certain extent provides evidence for the spillover effect and impact mechanism of pro-environmental behaviors.Therefore,when promoting people’s pro-environmental behaviors in real life,conditions of high status quo mutability can be created,allowing them to see the positive results of engaging in a certain environmental-friendly behavior,improving their pro-environmental behaviors level,and thus affecting other pro-environmental behaviors.have a positive impact.