Save the Planet for Humans' Sake: A Study on Social and Environmental Value Orientations

Evidence for the relationship between social and environmental concerns is mixed. However, these constructs have commonly been measured by diverse methods that do not readily facilitate a direct comparison of results. We employ a consistent incentivized method to assess subjects’ social value orientations (SVO) and also their motivations for the environment and humanitarian aid. Subjects made resource allocation choices with real consequences while the experimental design ensured comparability of subjects’ preferences (i.e., their willingness to make tradeoffs for different environmental and social causes). We found that social and environmental value orientations are intertwined, and the results clearly show that people are generally willing to pay more for the benefit of people in need, compared to abstract environmental causes. We conclude that interventions to nudge people towards environmentally-friendly behavior may have a greater impact if the human suffering as resulting from global warming is made salient.