中国科学院行为科学重点实验室知识库

垃圾急剧增长严重污染环境,亟需垃圾分类和减量,没有桶前志愿者监管,垃圾混放污染率居高不下。而居民不配合志愿者的情况时有发生,如何促进居民与志愿者合作?基于声誉关注和社会距离理论,为解决垃圾分类困境,本研究实施3个情境实验和1个质性访谈调研,考察对志愿者的熟悉度(高/低/陌生)、志愿者年龄(小学生/年轻人/老年人)如何影响不同年龄的居民(中青年和老年人)的合作性,及其内在作用机制。结果发现,人们对志愿者熟悉度越高,合作性越高;在低熟悉条件下,对老年志愿者合作性更高(实验1和实验2)。同中青年被试相比,老年被试对老年志愿者的合作性更高,但同陌生志愿者的合作性低于中青年被试(实验2)。社会距离和声誉关注可作为熟悉度促进合作的心理机制,起到链式中介作用(实验3)。多元回归分析和质性调研结果表明,社区里居民熟悉的志愿者监管引导,及居民自身的亲社会性,在垃圾分类推广中起着关键作用。这些重要发现为垃圾分类的推行及降低成本提供了参考价值和科学支撑。

Despite the growing urgency of waste separation as an environmental concern, the rates of contamination from unsorted waste remain high without the monitoring from volunteers. How can we facilitate collaboration between residents and volunteers? To address the dilemma of waste separation, the present study conducted three experiments and one qualitative interview based on the theories of competitive altruism and social influence to investigate the effects of familiarity and age on residents' cooperation, as well as the mediating roles of reputational concern and social distance.

Using scenarios, participants were asked to read the instructions (each representing one of the conditions), and then to predict the extent of probability that they would cooperate in each condition. Experiment 1 adopted a 3 (volunteer age group: primary children/younger/older) X 3 (volunteer familiarity: high/low/unfamiliar) within-subjects design to examine the differences in the cooperation of young people (M=20.16士1.01 years) with volunteers in different conditions. Experiment 2 adopted a 2 (participant age group: younger/older; between-subjects variable) X 3 (volunteer age group: primary children/younger/older; within-subjects variable) X 3 (volunteer familiarity: high/low/unfamiliar; within-subjects variable) mixed design, to examine the age-related differences of the cooperation between younger people (M一40.63士7.60 years) and older people (M =68.90士4.97 years) with volunteers in different conditions. The findings of Experiment 1 were replicated. Experiment 3 adopted a 2 (volunteer age group: younger/older) X 2 (volunteer familiarity: high/unfamiliar) within-subjects design, and it lasted for four weeks at an interval of one week for each participant. Experiment 3 aimed to examine the mediating role of reputational concern and social distance in familiarity and cooperation.

Experiment 1 showed that participants cooperated more with the high familiar volunteers than with the low familiar or strange volunteers. The higher the familiarity, the greater the cooperative intention. As age and familiarity interact to affect the cooperative intention, participants cooperated more with older volunteers than with primary children in the low familiar condition. Experiment 2 replicated the results of Experiment 1, and found that familiarity had a significant effect on the cooperative intention of both younger and older adults. Besides, older adults cooperated more with older volunteers while less with strangers than younger adults. Experiment 3 replicated the results of the first two experiments, and examined the underlying mechanism. The mediation analysis showed that social distance and reputational concern play a serial mediating role in the effect of familiarity on cooperation. The results of multiple regression analysis and qualitative interviews showed that the monitoring and feedback of the volunteers, who were familiar with the residents and individual prosociality, played key roles in promoting waste separation.

These findings provide suggestions and scientific support for the practice of waste separation and saving management costs. The present study showed that helping residents to become familiar with volunteers in advance, or recruiting people who are familiar with residents as volunteers, will be helpful for waste separation. These strategies can promote the cooperative intention of residents, and help them form the habit of waste separation. Social distance and reputational concern play a serial mediating role in the effect of familiarity on cooperation.

国家自然科学基金项目(72174194);中国科学院与日本学术振兴会共同研究资助项目((GJHZ2095);中国科学院心理研究所科研项目(Y9CX391008, E2CX3315CX)。