Wednesday 16:00 pm - 17:15 pm FIT seminar room

livMatS Colloquium | Dr. Anne Berthold (ETH Zürich) | Scarcity Perception & Technology Acceptance

Abstract
These days the world is facing a lot of challenges related to global warming. As described in reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) one of the challenges is the growing problem of natural resource scarcity. Researchers proposed that technological innovations might help overcoming scarcity. Indeed, new technologies could represent opportunities to tackle the reduced energy or food supply and are likely to emerge over time. One crucial question is however, if the population is willing to accept these new technologies. Based on theories of self-regulation, we assumed that people are more open to innovations when they become aware of the scarcity problems we are facing now and in the future. In this talk, the findings of two studies will be reported showing how peoples’ attitudes towards new sustainable technologies in the food domain and energy sector are related to scarcity perception. In both studies we asked people from Switzerland and Germany to indicate their opinion on different measures of scarcity perception, technology acceptance and pro-environmental behaviors. We found in both studies that more concern about the scarcity of natural resources is going along with a higher openness to new sustainable technologies across a big range of technologies (e.g., solar panels, energy-saving floormats, wind kites). Moreover, the openness to new technologies was also related to peoples’ willingness to engage in pro-environmental behavior indicating that people view both technological innovations alongside with personal behavioral changes as necessary routes to tackle resource scarcity.

Brief Bio
Dr. Anne Berthold studied psychology at the University Leipzig in Germany and completed her Diploma thesis in 2005, which received an award from the FGSP (Fachgruppe Sozialpsychologie). In 2009 she completed her PhD in at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena. After some years of research at the University of Zurich (Department of Personality Psychology, Department of Social Psychology), she is currently working at the IED (Institute for Environmental Decisions) of the ETH Zurich in Switzerland where she investigates how people’s perception and decisions are shaped by different contextual factors.