The Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) region is one of the fastest developing in the world, however, some of its countries are the slowest in implementing sustainable construction practices. One of these countries is Kuwait, which contributes one and a half times more global greenhouse gas emissions per capita than the U.S. The dissertation starts by identifying potential barriers to more sustainable design and construction practices among professionals in Kuwait. The barriers identified are not technological, but behavioral, related to perceptions of risk and awareness. Behavioral science offers potential solutions to address these barriers through a concept called choice architecture. Professionals who design and construct our built environment use decision tools such as rating systems to inform their design decision making. These tools are inherently embedded with choice architecture. More intentional choice architecture among rating systems that align individual preferences and beliefs may increase the pursuit of more environmentally sustainable design solutions. One form of choice architecture is called goal framing, which describes the outcome of a choice as either a positive consequence of engaging in a behavior or a negative consequence of not engaging in a behavior. Goal framing was applied to the Envision rating system for sustainable infrastructure to emphasize how long-term sustainable outcomes align with decision makers immediate project needs, preferences, and values. Engineering professionals from the U.S. and Kuwait were randomly assigned either the original version of Envision or the goal framed version. The results indicate that goal framing the credits about people and finances, not just the impact on the environment, increased participants motivation and encouraged them to set higher goals for sustainable performance, specifically among professionals who hold a pro-social paradigm of the world. These findings have relevance to those who design, use, and mandate the use of rating systems during the design and construction process of buildings and infrastructure. Future research should continue to explore how engineering professionals make decisions and what choice architecture modifications can support design and engineering towards more sustainable outcomes. / Doctor of Philosophy / The Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) region is one of the fastest developing in the world, however, some of its countries are the slowest in implementing sustainable construction practices. One of these countries is Kuwait, which contributes one and a half times more global greenhouse gas emissions per capita than the U.S. The dissertation starts by identifying potential barriers to more sustainable design and construction practices among professionals in Kuwait. The barriers identified are not technological, but behavioral, related to perceptions of risk and awareness. Behavioral science offers potential solutions to address these barriers through a concept called choice architecture. Professionals who design and construct our built environment use decision tools such as rating systems to inform their design decision making. These tools are inherently embedded with choice architecture. More intentional choice architecture among rating systems that align individual preferences and beliefs may increase the pursuit of more environmentally sustainable design solutions. One form of choice architecture is called goal framing, which describes the outcome of a choice as either a positive consequence of engaging in a behavior or a negative consequence of not engaging in a behavior. Goal framing was applied to the Envision rating system for sustainable infrastructure to emphasize how long-term sustainable outcomes align with decision makers immediate project needs, preferences, and values. Engineering professionals from the U.S. and Kuwait were randomly assigned either the original version of Envision or the goal framed version. The results indicate that goal framing the credits about people and finances, not just the impact on the environment, increased participants motivation and encouraged them to set higher goals for sustainable performance, specifically among professionals who hold a pro-social paradigm of the world. These findings have relevance to those who design, use, and mandate the use of rating systems during the design and construction process of buildings and infrastructure.

The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged fast fashion to circular products to prevent excessive overstock in responding to consumers' shift toward less consumption. These shifts are worth studying as consumers are willing to partake in pro-environmental behaviors, leading to a circular business model for fast fashion. This study explores how sustainable knowledge and consumer goals toward circularity can influence behavior toward circular consumption based on the goal framing theory. An online survey employing the Prolific survey platform was conducted with 300 fast-fashion consumer panels. The quantitative approach (ANOVA, cluster, factor, multiple regressions analyses) supported that consumers' framed-goals toward circularity significantly influence their intention to purchase fast fashion products. Fast-fashion consumers have prioritized reliable communication and pro-environmental goals to respectfully purchase circular products and 5Rs behaviors. They perceived circular economy and environmental knowledge as deciding factors in their pursuits of circularity. It corresponds to the benefits of lucrative circular business applications for fast fashion.

An auditor performing analytical review must typically diagnose material variances of observed client data from his/her own expectations. The auditor may utilize a decision aid to help in generating potential explanations for a variance; it has, however, the capacity to provide many more explanations than are possible using other means. Under the circumstances of budgetary constraints and limited cognitive load for beginning an information search with these explanations, the auditor may consider the lengthy list and arrive at a more manageable sub-list of the most probable explanations. In doing so, the auditor either eliminates those explanations that are less likely or includes those that are more likely into a reduced list for further consideration. While the goal under either approach is the same-to reduce the list-studies in psychology have shown that those including will reduce the list to a much greater extent than those eliminating. If the auditor begins an information search with this reduced list of explanations, then whether the auditor uses inclusion or elimination may have effectiveness and efficiency implications for the remainder of the analytical review process. The auditor must also contend with risk in the audit environment, which also may influence the manner in which the auditor reduces the lengthy list of explanations. A risky audit environment is generally related to heightened auditor skepticism and increased audit effort, as predicted by the audit risk model (SAS 47, AICPA 1983). Each of these translates into the desire to pursue a greater number of plausible explanations in a high risk environment than in a low risk environment. Therefore, an auditor would be expected to reduce a decision-aid-provided list of explanations to a lesser degree in a high risk environment than a low risk environment. The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the occurrence of a goal framing effect at varied levels of client risk. Using a two-way between subjects design, auditors in this study either eliminated or included explanations from a decision-aid-provided list in a low risk or high risk analytical review setting. As suggested by the goal framing theory, auditors who eliminated concluded with significantly more explanations than those who included. Furthermore, as suggested by the audit risk model, auditors in a high risk environment concluded with significantly more explanations than auditors in a low risk environment. Because previous auditing literature provides that auditor conservatism, which is heightened in periods of high risk, often mitigates biases and heuristics found in the general decision making or psychology literature, it was also predicted that in the high risk scenario, the influence of high risk in enlarging the set of explanations would overcome the influence of the inclusion goal framing in reducing the set of explanations. No support was found for this interaction. The results of this study have implications for the implementation of decision aids in practice. This study advises that in various client risk settings, auditors evaluating a lengthy decision-aid-provided list of explanations by inclusion may arrive at a significantly smaller number of explanations than by elimination. Given that the subsequent step of analytical review-information search-is planned according to what the auditor believes are the plausible hypotheses, goal framing may have an impact on the overall efficiency and effectiveness of analytical review, in both high and low risk client scenarios. / Ph. D.

Grönområden i urbana miljöer bidrar med många centrala funktioner vilka är livsviktiga för både djur och människor, exempelvis biologisk mångfald, ekosystemtjänster och positiva hälsoeffekter. Förekomsten av grönområden och dess funktioner hotas däremot av den snabba globala urbaniseringen som ger upphov till förändrad markanvändning. Enligt Göteborgs Stads lokala miljömål ämnar staden att bli ekologiskt hållbar till år 2030 och detta ska uppnås genom en ökad biologisk mångfald och bevarande av grönområden. Göteborg har blivit utnämnd till Sveriges grönaste stad, men samtidigt har grönområdena minskat mellan åren 1986-2019 och fortsätter att minska på grund av exploatering. Syftet med examensarbetet var därmed att öka kunskapen om vad som ger upphov till att det tas beslut som orsakar reducering av urbana grönområden trots uppsatta mål för bevarande av dessa, vilket var ett eftersatt forskningsområde. För att uppnå syftet användes en induktiv kvalitativ metod med semistrukturerade intervjuer. Resultatet analyserades genom miljöpsykologiska, miljöetiska och policyteorier, nämligen värden, goal-framing theory, värdepluralism och lömska problem. Studien kom fram till att Göteborgs stadsplanering innefattade flera lömska problem och värdekonflikter vilka uttrycktes genom målkonflikter, som tillsammans med starka hedonistiska och egoistiska värden samt vinstdrivande mål hade en negativ inverkan på förekomsten av Göteborgs grönområden. / Green spaces in urban areas contribute with many key functions that are vital for both animals and humans, such as biodiversity, ecosystem services and positive health effects. However, the existence of green spaces and their functions are threatened by the rapid global urbanization that is causing land use changes. According to the City of Gothenburg’s local environmental goals, the city aims to become ecologically sustainable by the year of 2030 through increased biodiversity and nature conservation. Gothenburg has been named as Sweden's greenest city, although the green spaces in Gothenburg have decreased between the years 1986–2019 and will continue to decline due to exploitation. The purpose of this bachelor’s thesis was thus to increase knowledge about what stimulates decisions that cause a reduction of green spaces in Gothenburg despite set conservation goals, which was a neglected research area. To achieve the purpose, an inductive qualitative method was used with semi-structured interviews. The results were analyzed through theories of environmental psychology, environmental ethics and policy, namely values, goal-framing theory, value pluralism and wicked problems. The study concluded that Gothenburg's urban planning included several wicked problems and value conflicts that were expressed through goal conflicts, which negatively affected Gothenburg’s green spaces. Furthermore, strong hedonistic and egoistic values as well as gain goals, also had a negative impact on the existence of Gothenburg's green spaces.

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För att hantera klimatförändring och växande städer måste samhällen utvecklas för att vara hållbara. Dessutom måste mänskligt beteende förändras för att stadsutvecklingen ska uppnå hållbarhetsmålen. En stad som har integrerat hållbarhetsaspekter i sin stadsutveckling är Sundsvall. Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka upplevelser och åsikter om hållbar stadsutveckling i Sundsvalls innerstad. För att studera detta på djupet har en kvalitativ intervjustudie med 6 respondenter genomförts. I intervjuerna framkommer en positiv uppfattning om hållbarhet och hållbar stadsplanering bland samtliga respondenter. Attityderna som respondenterna uttrycker är däremot negativ gentemot Sundsvalls hållbara stadsutveckling. Majoriteten av deltagarna upplever inte att stadsutvecklingen har påverkat deras val av hållbara alternativ i vardagen, medan en respondent anser att den har gjort det. Respondenterna menar att de har skapat nya strategier för att röra sig i staden som följd av stadsutvecklingen. Resultatet indikerar att invånarnas behov inte beaktats i planeringsprocessen, en aspekt som tidigare forskning menar är väsentlig för att lyckas med hållbar stadsutveckling. Respondenterna menar att det finns kontextuella omständigheter som påverkar möjligheten att göra hållbara val. Tidigare forskningsresultat menar att det finns en tidsaspekt och att individers upplevelser och attityder kan förändras efter tid. Respondenternas beteende indikerar att de inte har acklimatiserat sig till förändringarna.

Studiens syfte är att undersöka konsumentbeteende för att skapa större förståelse för konsumenters motivation till socialt hållbara produktköp. Vilka motivationsmål är viktiga för konsumenter vid köp av en socialt hållbar produkt? Det ökade intresset inom området social hållbarhet hos allmänheten (Eweje 2020) samt de motsägelser som finns i tidigare forskning (Antonetti & Maklan 2014; Shao & Ünal 2019; Veleva 2020) gör det här till ett intressant och aktuellt ämne. Genom ett bekvämlighetsurval väljs respondenter med tidigare erfarenhet av socialt hållbara produktköp ut för strukturerade intervjuer. Intervjuschemat utformas delvis efter Consumer Motivation Scale (CMS) modellen. Med utgångspunkt i CMS-modellen (Barbopoulos & Johansson 2017) och goal-framing theory (GFT) (Lindenberg & Steg 2007) undersöks vilka motivationsmål (huvudmål och delmål) som är viktiga för konsumenten. Resultaten kan endast svara för vilka motivationsmål som är viktigast vid socialt hållbara produktköp för respondenterna i den här studien. Resultaten av den här studien visar att det tillförskaffande huvudmålet och delmålet etik är viktigast. Sambandsanalyserna visade vidare att beroende på hur ofta och för hur mycket respondenterna handlade socialt hållbara produkter så påverkades vilka påståenden som var viktiga för dem. Då den här studien inte har möjlighet att presentera ett generaliserbart resultat, utan snarare kan visa en indikation på vilka mål som kan vara viktiga för konsumenter vid socialt hållbara produktköp, kan framtida studier fortsätta att utveckla kunskapen inom området. Området skulle gynnas av både mer omfattande kvantitativa studier som kan producera ett generaliserbart resultat gällande konsumenter i Sverige, samt kvalitativa studier som kan erbjuda en djupare förståelse för området. Rekommendationer till framtida studier diskuteras i studiens slutsatser. Studien är skriven på svenska. / This study aims to investigate consumer behaviour to create a greater understanding of consumers' motivation towards purchasing socially sustainable products. What motivational goals are important for consumers when buying a socially sustainable product? The increased interest in the field of social sustainability among the general public (Eweje 2020), as well as the contradictions that exist in previous research (Antonetti & Maklan 2014; Shao & Ünal 2019; Veleva 2020) makes this an interesting and current topic to research further. Through a convenience sample, respondents with previous experience of socially sustainable product purchases are selected for structured interviews. The interview schedule is partially designed after the Consumer Motivation Scale model (CMS). Based on the CMS-model (Barbopoulos & Johansson 2017) and goal-framing theory (GFT) (Lindenberg & Steg 2007), the study investigates which motivational goals (main goals and subgoals) that are important for the consumer. The results can only answer which motivational goals that were most important in socially sustainable product purchases for the respondents in this study. The results show that the main goal gain and the subgoal ethics are the most important. The correlation analyzes further showed that depending on how often and for how much the respondents purchased socially sustainable products, the importance of the statements varied. As this study can not present a generalizable result, but rather an indication of which goals that may be important for consumers when purchasing socially sustainable products, future studies could continue to research within this subject. The research area would benefit from both more comprehensive quantitative studies that can produce a generalizable result for consumers in Sweden, and qualitative studies that can offer a deeper understanding of the subject. Recommendations for future studies are further discussed in the conclusions of this study. The study is written in Swedish.

Master of Science / Department of Journalism and Mass Communications / Joye C. Gordon / This experimental research adopts a typology of frames by Levin, Gaeth, and Schneider (1998) and seeks to a) determine what combination of attribute and goal frames produces the strongest effect on vaccination behavior; b) ascertain to what extent personal relevance of vaccination moderates this framing effect; and c) explore how individual pre-existing characteristics, such as recent vaccination history, vaccine risk perception, vaccine dread, and general attitude toward vaccination influence the persuasive power of framed messages. The study, designed as field experiment 2 (+/- attribute frame) x 2 (+/- goal frame) x 2(involvement), recruited 476 adult female participants that were exposed online to four experimental framing manipulations and a control condition. The main effect is consistent with the typology of frames — the combination of the positive attribute and the negative goal frame was the only condition that was significantly more persuasive than the control condition. Participants who had children or were pregnant, for whom vaccination was more relevant and meaningful, have not reacted to message framing differently. However, general pre-existing attitudes towards vaccines, perception of vaccine safety, perception of vaccine efficacy, vaccine dread, and vicarious experience with vaccine side effects, appear to be associated with antecedents of vaccination behavior. Overall, this study has focused on ecological validity,aiming at the applicability of framing theory in the context of health communication.

En viktig fråga för hur våra städer och samhällen ska bli mer hållbara är hur andelen hållbart resande kan öka, samt hur bilanvändandet kan minska. Mobility management är ett koncept inom vilken man implementerar mjuka åtgärder för att öka det hållbara resandet. Det används dock främst i stadsmiljöer. Denna studie undersöker om och i sådant fall hur mobility management-åtgärder skulle kunna implementeras i området Lindbacken i Uppsala. Lindbacken är ett småhusområde, beläget på glesbygden ungefär en mil utanför centrala Uppsala. Detta gör att området till synes inte är passande för denna typ av åtgärder. En fallstudie genomfördes för att skapa en förståelse för Lindbacken som område och dess invånare. Den var uppdelat i tre delar: en områdesstudie med insamling av sekundär statistik och inventering av området, en enkätstudie för att skapa en förståelse för de boendes attityder och resebeteenden samt en intervjustudie med representanter från Uppsala kommun och kollektivtrafikaktören UL. Tillsammans med tidigare forskning utgjorde fallstudien grunden för studiens analys och slutsats. Som teoretiskt ramverk användes de tre miljöpsykologiteorierna Theory of Reasoned Action, Theory of Planned Behavior och Goal-framing Theory. Från studien framgår att mobility management-åtgärder skulle kunna implementeras i Lindbacken, men att dessa bör kombineras med fysiska åtgärder för att ge bäst effekt. Åtgärderna bör fokusera på att stärka invånarnas känsla av kontroll över trafiksituationer kopplade till hållbart resande, exempelvis kopplat till tidseffektivitet. Åtgärderna bör också verka för att stärka en positiv attityd gentemot hållbart resande samt för att motivera beteenden som efterlevs med målet att göra vad som anses lämpligt. / An important question for how to make our cities and societies more sustainable, is how to increase the amount of sustainable travel as well as reducing car-use. Mobility management is a concept in which soft measures are implemented to increase sustainable travel. It is, however, mostly used within urban areas. This study explores if and how mobility management measures could be implemented in the area Lindbacken in Uppsala. Lindbacken is a residential area in the rural outskirts of Uppsala, about 10 kilometers from the city center, thus making it seemingly less appropriate for this kind of measures. A case study was performed to create an understanding for the area of Lindbacken and the residents. It was divided into three parts: an area study consisting of collecting secondary statistics and making an inventory study of the area, a questionnaire study to gain an understanding of the residents’ attitudes and travel behaviors, and an interview study with representatives from Uppsala municipality and the public transport actor UL. Together with previous research in the field, the case study was the foundation for the analysis and conclusion of the study. As a theoretical framework the three environmental psychology theories Theory of Reasoned Action, Theory of Planned Behavior and Goal-framing Theory was used. The study makes clear that mobility management measures could be implemented in Lindbacken. They should however be combined with hard, physical measures to gain the best effects. The measures should focus on strengthening the residents’ feeling of control in relation to traffic situation connected to sustainable travel, e.g. when it comes to time efficiency. The measures should also work to strengthen positive attitudes towards sustainable travel, as well as motivating behaviors that is acted out with the goal to do what is considered most appropriate.

This study sets out to explore attitudes and intentions towards nicotine product goods and how it is affected by the goal framing effect. The presence of this effect has been shown in the advertising of both green products and everyday products. The aim of this research is to explore whether or not this also holds true when it comes to unhealthy products, more precisely tobacco free all white nicotine products.    A quasi experimental study was conducted with the use of a fictitious brand of All-white tobacco. All 63 participants in the three different experimental groups of the study met the mandatory age requirement. One of the three groups received a positively framed advert, another received a negatively framed advert, whereas the last group acted as the control group and therefore received a neutral advertisement stimuli. All participants submitted their answers on a questionnaire created for this study, which was validated using Cronbach’s alpha and factor analysis.   The results suggest that the use of goal framing is beneficial when advertising nicotine product goods. Both positive and negative goal-framing showed a greater effect on purchase intention and product attitude than the control group. The negative goal-framing advert proved to be statistically different than the control group when measuring product attitude. Furthermore, the positively framed advert showed a statistically significant difference in effect on both product attitude and purchase intention compared to the control group.    The findings suggest that positively framed goal-framing has an effect on both attitudes and purchase intention, compared to the neutral stimuli. The negatively framed goal-framing had an effect on attitudes, compared to the neutral stimuli. The practical implication of this study could possibly be that when constructing advertisements for tobacco free snus products, it could be preferable to make use of the positive goal-framing effect in order to affect the consumers purchase intention and attitude towards the product.   This study has confirmed to some extent that the framing effect is a factor prevalent in the advertising of tobacco free products. For further research it would be highly interesting to delve deeper in comparing positive and negative goal-framing in order to find further evidence of which one has greater effect on consumers.