title: Social Norms and Global Environmental Challenges: The Complex Interaction of Behaviors, Values, and Policy.
abstract: Government policies are needed when people's behaviors fail to deliver the public good. Those policies will be most effective if they can stimulate long-term changes in beliefs and norms, creating and reinforcing the behaviors needed to solidify and extend the public good.It is often the short-term acceptability of potential policies, rather than their longer-term efficacy, that determines their scope and deployment. The policy process should consider both time scales. The academy, however, has provided insufficient insight on the coevolution of social norms and different policy instruments, thus compromising the capacity of decision makers to craft effective solutions to the society's most intractable environmental problems. Life scientists could make fundamental contributions to this agenda through targeted research on the emergence of social norms.
authors.affiliation: Professor, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Box 874501, Tempe, AZ 85281, Ann.Kinzig@asu.edu.
authors.forename: Ann P
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Kinzig
authors.affiliation: Bing Professor of Population Studies, Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, pre@stanford.edu.
authors.forename: Paul R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Ehrlich
authors.affiliation: Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, Lee.Alston@colorado.edu.
authors.forename: Lee J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Alston
authors.affiliation: Joan Kenney Professor of Economics & Professor of Operations Research, Department of Economics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, arrow@stanford.edu.
authors.forename: Kenneth
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Arrow
authors.affiliation: Lenfest-Earth Institute Professor of Natural Resource Economics, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, sb3116@columbia.edu.
authors.forename: Scott
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Barrett
authors.affiliation: Professor of Surgery and Anesthesiology, Woodruff Health Science Center Administration Building, 1440 Clifton Road NW, Suite 313A, Atlanta, GA 30322, tbuchma@emory.edu.
authors.forename: Timothy G
authors.initials: TG
authors.lastname: Buchman
authors.affiliation: Bing Professor of Environmental Science, Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, gdaily@stanford.edu.
authors.forename: Gretchen C
authors.initials: GC
authors.lastname: Daily
authors.affiliation: Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Biology, Department of Biology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, blevin@emory.edu.
authors.forename: Bruce
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Levin
authors.affiliation: Moffett Professor of Biology, Department of Ecology and Evolution, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, slevin@princeton.edu.
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Levin
authors.affiliation: Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs, Department of Geosciences and Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Robertson Hall 448, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, omichael@princeton.edu.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Oppenheimer
authors.affiliation: Distinguished Professor and Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, ostrom@indiana.edu.
authors.forename: Elinor
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ostrom
authors.affiliation: UCI Distinguished Professor, Mathematics and Economics, Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-5100, dsaari@uci.edu.
authors.forename: Donald
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Saari
keywords: Behavioral science; assessments; interdisciplinary science; policy/ethics; sustainability