In recent years we have witnessed a generalized increase in awareness of the need to take action to limit the negative effects of climate change. However, there is still low adoption of sustainable behaviors. This can be explained by both psychological and economic mechanisms, which often lead to socially suboptimal choices. This project intends to intervene in some of these mechanisms that influence the human decision-making process, to push people to cooperate more to protect the environment. We aim to generate narratives on climate change that effectively favor the rationalization of the use of natural resources; identify groups that tend to be less likely to associate the increased frequency of extreme natural events with climate change; test how different narratives on climate change influence the behavior of these groups, in order to raise awareness and induce cooperative behaviors; finally, analyze how the attitude towards immigration can stimulate cooperative and sustainable behaviors for the protection of the environment.

Team: Giulia Fuochi (Psychology, UniPd), Laura Anfossi (Chemistry, UniTo), Cristina Mosso (Psychology, UniTo), Pierluigi Conzo (P.I. - ESt, UniTo and CCA); Roberto Zotti (ESt, UniTo); Tommaso Capezzone (CCA and UniTo), Marta Buso (UniTo). 

Media affect people’s opinion about many matters, affecting individual decision processes. This paper investigates the underexplored link between media bias and workplace discrimination through an artefactual job-market experiment mimicking hiring decisions. Participants are primed with newspaper articles presenting immigration positively, negatively or neutrally. After the priming, they perform a money-incentivized effort task, generating payoffs based on the productivity of a team that they are required to form. Teammates are hired from a list of candidates containing half native- and half foreign-sounding names, jointly with their productivity levels. The experiment is designed so that a profit-maximizer agent with no taste for discrimination should not care about the ethnic composition of the team. Results show no main treatment effects, with neither (positively/negatively) biased nor neutral information affecting taste-based discrimination. However, analytical thinking plays a moderating role, only for people primed with positive media messages. In this condition, reflective participants discriminate less, since they might deem positive media news on immigration more reliable. This implies that nudging deliberative agents with pro-immigration narratives may help mitigate ethnic-based discrimination in contexts where teamwork is required.

Team: Davide Bellucci, University of Roma Tre; Pierluigi Conzo, ESt and CCA; Matteo Migheli, ESt 

The project is focused on the evaluation of sustainable mobility and, in particular, of hydrogen mobility, with the following objectives: 1) Social acceptance and impact of hydrogen for sustainable mobility, to be evaluated also by looking at existing regulations; 2) Feasibility analysis of investments in hydrogen mobility; 3) Impact of sustainable mobility in the energy transition, with particular reference to hydrogen mobility. Evaluation of market changes, impact on the generation of renewables and the role of electrolysis.

PI: Valeria Di Cosmo (ESt)

• Della Giusta, M., S. Clot and S. Jewell (2022) Once Good, Always Good? Testing Nudge’s Spillovers on Pro Environmental Behaviour, Environment and Behaviour

• Braut, B., Migheli, M., & Truant, E. (2022). Food consumption changes during 2020 lockdown in Italy. Research in Economics, 76(2), 107-119.

• Braut, B., Migheli, M., & Truant, E. (2022). Household mobility in food purchasing during COVID-19 lockdown: Evidence from Torino, Italy. Cities, 122, 103554.

• Attanasi, G., Maffioletti, A., Shalukhina, T., Bel, C., & Cherikh, F. (2021). Gender Differences in the Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown on Potentially Addictive Behaviors: An Emotion-Mediated Analysis. Frontiers in psychology, 12.

• Aassve, A., Conzo, P., & Mattioli, F. (2021). Was Banfield right? New insights from a nationwide laboratory experiment. Journal of regional science, 61(5), 1029-1064.

• Romanò, S., & Barrera, D. (2021). The impact of market-oriented reforms on inequality in transitional countries: new evidence from Cuba. Socio-Economic Review, 19(2), 765-787.

• Romanò, S., Parisi, T., Barbera, F., Barrera, D., & Bocca, G. (2021). Diversi ma non troppo: studiare gli innovatori in laboratorio. Diversi ma non troppo: studiare gli innovatori in laboratorio, 38-66.

• Szekely, A., Lipari, F., Antonioni, A., Paolucci, M., Sánchez, A., Tummolini, L., & Andrighetto, G. (2021). Evidence from a long-term experiment that collective risks change social norms and promote cooperation. Nature Communications, 12(1), 5452.

• Migheli, M., & Pronzato, C. (2020). Thinking as the others do: persistence and conformity of sexual double standard among young Italians. Genus, 76(1), 1-15.

• Fontana, M., Iori, M., & Nava, C. R. (2019). Switching behavior in the Italian electricity retail market: Logistic and mixed effect Bayesian estimations of consumer choice. Energy Policy, 129, 339-351.

• Beretta, E., Fontana, M., Guerzoni, M., & Jordan, A. (2018). Cultural dissimilarity: Boon or bane for technology diffusion?. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 133, 95-103.