Hero Projects
Researcher: Hanna C. Ross
Description: Hanna’s research has focused on the role of hero projects (i.e., culturally-valued legacies that will outlive our biological existence) – a unique behavioural response to mortality awareness that serve to quell fears and anxieties surrounding our impermanence. Terror Management Theory (TMT) suggests that everyone has some type of hero project, and people work really hard to achieve and defend these projects. But hero projects can come in many different shapes and sizes such as constructing infrastructure, writing books, or having children.
Specifically, Hanna has explored how hero projects may support or obstruct sustainability efforts such as water management and conservation. Her undergraduate research found mortality salience indicators in public statements from historical news articles before, during, and after the Hoover dam’s construction, indicating that the dam may have served as a remarkable – but unsustainable – water infrastructure hero-project for those involved in its installation.
Building off this idea of water-centric hero projects, Hanna’s master’s research explored whether it was appropriate to consider lawns as hero projects and conducted a mortality salience induction survey to measure mortality salience (awareness) effects on lawn watering intentions. Although she successfully conducted a TMT experiment in a non-clinical setting, mortality salience did not influence lawn watering intentions. However, this finding may have been the result of high-self esteem and strong environmental identity – two terror-managing buffers that reduce the need to activate defensive behaviours.
See: Ross, H.C., and S. E. Wolfe. (2021). "Terror Management Theory and Urban Water Decisions: Does Mortality Salience Influence Outdoor Residential Water Consumption?" The International Journal of Social Sustainability in Economic, Social, and Cultural Context 17 (2): 29-53. doi:10.18848/2325-1115/CGP/v17i02/29-53.
Drawing from social psychology and the theories of religious conversion, Hanna will use conversion theory to continue exploring the cognitive and emotional processes underpinning environmental identity adoption – and possibly adopting new sustainable hero projects – during her doctoral studies (starting in 2022).
Project Funding: Funded through Wolfe’s Canada’s Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) through their Insight Development Grant (2012: #430-2012-0264).
Awe and pro-environmental behaviour: A scoping review of the interdisciplinary literature
Researcher: Devon Jones
Project Description: For the world to address the unprecedented challenge of climate change, there needs to be a widescale shift in behaviour. How can we help motivate this shift? We believe that looking beyond rationality to the emotional motivations of behaviour can help shift worldviews and challenge the idea of human dominance over nature. Awe has been shown to influence pro-social behaviour; we argue that pro-environmental behaviour is a unique subset of pro-social behaviour, and that it too could be influenced by experiences of awe. We submit that awe’s effects on pro-environmental behaviour merit closer study because of awe’s impacts on individuals’ values, self-concept, sense of connection to the world, and perception of barriers to action. To encourage this future research, we undertook a scoping review to present an overview of the established methods in awe and pro-environmental behaviour studies and consolidate areas of future studies suggested in the literature.
Project Funding: This research has been supported by Wolfe’s Canada’s Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) through their Insight Development Grant (2019: 430-2019-0067). This research was also supported by the Mitacs Research Training Award.
Dead in the water: The influence of mortality salience in water messages on gender equity
Researcher: Lauren Smith
Project Description: Lauren is exploring the intersection of Terror Management Theory (TMT), water communication, and gender bias. More specifically, she is focusing her research on mortality reminders within water messaging and related gender biases in innovative water decision-making.
While over 30 years of TMT empirical studies have tested various mortality reminders, including several instances of climate change, water as a mortality reminder has yet to be examined. Lauren’s first studies test three threatening water messages to determine if they increase death thought accessibility (DTA) and psycho-social defenses similarly to traditional mortality reminders. These results will inform future water communication. If a threatening water message increases psych-social defenses, such as outgroup derogation or worldview reinforcement, this has meaningful implications for following environmental behaviours. For example, if the recipient does not value environmental protection or water conservation prior to receiving a threatening water message, they may strengthen ties to that identity and further distance themselves from conservation efforts.
Lauren’s second research stage examines how these threatening, mortality-related messages influence appraisal of differently gendered water decision makers. Environmental scholars and political scientists have noted innovative, diverse, collaborative solutions are needed to resolve water crises, yet innovation and technology are male-dominated fields. Discussing threatening water scenarios in these spaces may increase mortality salience, thus increasing ingroup preference and outgroup derogation – potentially increasing gender biases and making it difficult for non-male genders to have their contributions valued. Successful, effective water solutions require input from diverse end-users, not a narrow subset. Given the life-threatening consequences of water crises, determining how to present and discuss these problems, without increasing gender biases and outgroup derogation, is imperative.
Project Funding: Lauren’s research is graciously funded by the SSHRC Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship (2020-2023), President’s Graduate Scholarship (2020-2023), HeForShe Gender Equity Research Grant (2019), and the Dean’s Doctoral Initiative with Exceptional Doctoral Student Scholarship (2018-2023). This research has also been supported by Wolfe’s Canada’s Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) through their Insight Grant (2018: 435-2018-0142).
Nature-based Awe and Water Professionals
Researcher: Avery Marie Deboer-Smith
Project Description: The research purpose is to explore, evaluate and determine the themes and gaps within contemporary awe literature. Specifically, in this project I will focus on how nature-based awe influences water professionals’ decisions and behaviours in British Columbia and Ontario. The key research question is, “what are the characteristics of water professionals’ nature-based awe experiences”? My hypothesis is that these individuals – professionals working with, for, or around the natural environment of water –may be more exposed to nature-based awe experiences, making them ideal survey candidates. The research goal is to deepen the understanding and potential importance of experiencing a profound emotion such as awe in a nature setting. The anticipated outcomes include a unique understanding of the frequency and type of nature-based awe experiences water professionals’ can or should incorporate into their personal and professional lives.
Project Funding: Avery’s research is supported by funding from SSHRC’s Joseph-Armand Bombardier CGS Masters Scholarship (2019-2022) and the Canadian Federation of University Women’s Centennial Scholarship (2019-2021).