Relentless overexploitation of natural resources has led to resource scarcity, environmentaldegradation and rising inequalities, straining social-ecological systems to breaking point.Ecosystems providing shared resources often respond non-linearly to resource pressuresbeyond critical thresholds, so-called regime shifts, jeopardizing the stable and just provisionof natural resources. Avoiding these critical thresholds is imperative, as not everyone canadapt to drastic changes in resource availability and distribution. In an unequal world wherecapacities to adapt to crossing critical thresholds vary substantially across individuals, groupsand countries, our understanding of behavioural responses remains limited. This thesisexplores whether and how inequality in adaptive capacities within groups sharing a naturalresource influence both the likelihood of groups crossing a critical threshold and groupdynamics. 160 students from the University of Exeter participated in an online Common-PoolResource (CPR) laboratory experiment comparing inequality and baseline treatments. Whileunequal adaptive capacities did not affect group’s likelihood of crossing the threshold, theynegatively impacted social dynamics and perceptions. Participants with low adaptive capacity(LAC) responded to the threat of the threshold by reducing their harvest significantly whencompared to participants with high adaptive capacity (HAC). Therefore, latent inequalities inthe choice context created real inequalities in resource allocation. Furthermore, HACparticipants lacked identification with the disadvantaged group as evidenced by lowerperceived group efficacy and no reduction in harvest. When the harvest was shared unequally,inequalities were more pronounced in the inequality treatment compared to the baseline.Investigating emotions revealed unexpected findings: Participants did not strongly experienceguilt despite its relevance in prior research, instead, positive emotions, particularlycompassion, were prominent across treatments despite non-cooperative outcomes. Whileresults caution against assuming solidarity of the privileged group solely based on awarenessof unequal impacts, future research might consider fairness, beyond inequalities, tounderstand collective behaviours in unequal contexts. / Inequality and the Biosphere: Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in an Unequal World
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-227984 |
| Date | January 2023 |
| Creators | Queckenberg, Sophia |
| Publisher | Stockholms universitet, Stockholm Resilience Centre |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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