Theoretical and Empirical Modeling of Student Pro-Sustainability Dining Habits On Penn State’s Campus
Open Access
- Author:
- Hoy, Raymond
- Area of Honors:
- Community, Environment, and Development
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Timothy Wayne Kelsey, Thesis Supervisor
Theodore Roberts Alter, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- CADM
Sustainability
Dining Habits
Students
PSU
Evolutionary Economics
Institutions
Behavior Change - Abstract:
- This undergraduate thesis endeavors to understand individual and collective pro-environmental behavior change generally and in the specific environment of pro-environmental dining habits of students on Penn State’s campus. Evolutionary Economics provides an epistemic understanding of how individual behavior interacts with institutions to evolve collective behavior change across time, though the field currently lacks an empirically robust understanding of individual psychology. The Comprehensive Action Determination Model is presented in this thesis to provide a valid method to predict and explain individual psychological behavior. The Comprehensive Action Determination Model (CADM) is then used to measure the individual impact of a pro-environmental educational intervention for incoming students at Penn State by surveying students before and after the intervention. The survey was generated to directly map to the psychological components of the CADM. Additional data was collected on student dining habits and attitudes towards a sustainable to-go dining option available to students and then analyzed in conjunction with secondary dining data provided by Penn State Dining to ground the psychological effects to student dining habits at Penn State. Data collected showed improvements to individual’s personal ecological norms following the educational intervention and modest improvements to other normative components of individual’s pro-environmental beliefs. Because of the nature of the experimental design, it was difficult to disentangle the effects of the educational intervention from the effects of the first few weeks as a student at Penn State. Future educational interventions could include a more cross-sectional experimental design to understand the impact of interventions on student dining habits.