This present research maintains that collectivism facilitates the process of addressing large-scale collective action problems, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change crisis. Addressing large-scale collective action problems requires the intervention of an authority to mobilize a large proportion of individuals to engage in community-benefitting behaviors. In Chapter 1, I propose a theoretical framework that describes the ways in which collectivism align with the characteristics of addressing large-scale collective action problem. Specifically, I propose three psychological mechanisms – other-orientation, susceptibility to social norms, and trust in authority – will explain collectivists’ tendencies to engage in community-benefitting behaviors. In Chapter 2, using the COVID-19 pandemic as a large-scale collective action problem, I test how the three aspects of collectivism predicts greater compliance with people’s likelihood of opting-in to digital contact tracing and wearing a face covering in public (Study 1). Findings show that susceptibility to social norms consistently predict greater compliance with both health preventative measures, while other-orientation does not. Findings also show mixed effect of trust in government, where greater trust only predicts greater likelihood of opting-in to digital contact tracing, as the measure has direct relevance with the government. In Chapter 3, I probe the relationship between collectivism and trust in government further in the context of climate crisis. Across Studies 2 and 3, I analyze two global datasets to show that collectivists have greater pro-environmental intention and support for climate change policies more, in part because they place greater trust in government. In Study 4, I test the causality of trust in government on policy support by asking participants to imagine themselves moving to a new country with a government that differs in their levels of competence and corruption, and test the moderating role of collectivism. Finding show the robust relationship between collectivism and policy support across conditions. Regardless of the levels of a government competence and corruption, high collectivists are still more likely to support climate policies compared to low collectivists. Lastly, I discuss the limitations, boundaries, and future directions of this research in Chapter 4. This research expands our theoretical understanding of collectivism by identifying specific psychological mechanisms that relates to particular behaviors, and highlights the need to leverage collectivism to promote community-benefitting behaviors across different large-scale collective action problems.

Digital contact tracing (DCT) and face coverings are community-benefiting non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to combat COVID-19 that impose some personal cost. Collectivism, a cultural orientation associated with prioritizing group goals over individual goals, has been shown to predict greater compliance to NPIs. However, the psychological mechanism underlying this association has not been investigated. The present study examined different aspects of collectivism (i.e., concern for community, normative influence, trust and perceived institution efficacy) that could explain greater compliance. More collectivistic individuals were more likely to comply with NPIs and this relationship was explained by collectivists’ greater susceptibility to normative influence and, trust and perceived institution efficacy, but not by greater concern for community. This research reveals specific pathways by which collectivism leads to community-benefiting compliance behaviors and highlights the role of cultural orientation in shaping individuals’ decisions that involve a tension between individual cost and community benefit.

Employment transitions necessitate a degree of uncertainty, which may present a challenge to succeeding and belonging at a new organization. The present research explores whether the perception of a higher degree of organizational structure can facilitate transitioning employees’ occupation self-efficacy and sense of belonging in a new work environment. We focus on military veterans, who face significant challenges during their separation from military service and transition to civilian employment. We conducted four studies with military veteran participants (two of which also included civilian participants): two using simple correlational methods, one using a three-year longitudinal design with transitioning veterans, and one using an experimental methodology with veterans and civilians. Across the studies, we find consistent evidence that when transitioning employees perceive greater structure at their organization, this facilitates increased feelings of occupational self-efficacy which, in turn, promotes greater feelings of belonging at work. Successful employment transitions are facilitated, we suggest, when people perceive greater structure in their environment. The results are discussed in the context of compensatory control theory, and addressing the challenges of transitioning employees, and in particular, transitioning military veterans.

This research seeks to understand how communicators’ strategy towards determining if an argument would be perceived as persuasive by someone else may be affected by their social judgements of that person. In so doing, this research contributes to our larger understanding of how social categorization processes affect communication by applying a model of mental state inference to the study of persuasion. Using the framework of the similarity-contingency model, I examine how communicators may change their approach to an argument depending on whether they perceive their message target as similar or dissimilar. It was theorized that when people have more in common with a target, they project, or rely on their own attitudes when determining which arguments would be most likely to persuade their target to support an initiative; when people have less in common with a target, they stereotype, or rely more on what they perceive to be the attitudes of a typical member of their target’s group when determining which arguments would be most likely to persuade their target to support an initiative. I tested this question using two different samples of pro-environmental communicators—activists at a federated national climate advocacy organization and college students at a university in the western United States—to explore whether the model would generalize to explain the communicative decisions of trained communicators and novices in different contexts. In Study 1 (N = 161), I examined if experimentally manipulated similarity of the persuasive target (similar vs. dissimilar) would affect whether environmental activists project or stereotype while ranking the efficacy of various arguments to persuade a local businessman to endorse the Energy Innovation & Carbon Dividend Act. Manipulated similarity was not found to affect whether activists project or stereotype when making choices about which pro-environmental arguments to use on a target. In Study 2 (N = 162), I examined if similarity of the persuasive target (both manipulated and measured via self-report) would affect whether pro-environmental college students in southern California project or stereotype as strategies for choosing which arguments to use to persuade a local businessman to support Carbon Neutrality in Santa Barbara. Although effects were marginal, experimentally manipulated similarity was found to affect students’ approach towards persuasive strategy: students in the similarity condition projected more than those in the dissimilarity condition. Analyses with perceived similarity provided converging support: students who perceived the target of persuasion as similar projected more than students who perceived the target of persuasion as dissimilar. Across both studies, communicators displayed a strong general pattern of stereotyping: collapsing across similarity levels, environmentalists engaged in greater stereotyping than projection when evaluating arguments for a businessman. Demonstrated through the present, the similarity-contingency model offers a new perspective and set of tools to the study of how social judgement affects communication. Further, by studying the mindset and the approach of the communicator instead of the message recipient, this research provides a more holistic view of the variables at play during a persuasive exchange.

Using the framework of Construal Level Theory, we examine if concern about extreme weather—assessed at the aggregate level via Google search frequencies within the U.S.— in one’s geographic region is related to people feeling less distant from climate change and consequently engaging in more pro-environmental support. We assess a range of pro-environmental outcomes including beliefs about climate change, support for mitigation policies, and environmental behaviors. In Study 1 we externally validated Google search as a measure of weather concern, finding that in U.S. states where objective exposure to extreme weather was greater, search volumes for that respective weather type were greater. In Study 2 combining 4 national datasets (n > 22,000), we examined if extreme weather concern would predict regional levels of climate change beliefs and policy support. Controlling for search-based and demographic variables, extreme weather concern predicted beliefs but not policy support. In Study 3 (N = 2538), we examined if individuals who lived in states where there is greater extreme weather concern would feel less psychologically distant from climate change, and if this reduced distance would lead to greater pro-environmental support. Regional concern was found to predict individuals’ sustainability behaviors but not their policy support or prioritization of climate change as a social issue. Lower psychological distance mediated the effect of regional weather concern on self-reported behaviors. This research advances two new methodological approaches to progress climate science: the use of Google search terms to operationalize extreme weather concern and a measure of psychological distance to climate disasters.

Keywords: sustainability, climate change, construal level theory, attitudes and social influence, applied social psychology