Klonek Florian E, Güntner Amelie V, Lehmann-Willenbrock Nale, Kauffeld Simone
Department of Industrial/Organizational and Social Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Technische Universität Braunschweig Braunschweig, Germany.
Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Education, VU University Amsterdam Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Front Psychol. 2015 Jul 21;6:1015. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01015. eCollection 2015.
Human behavior contributes to a waste of environmental resources and our society is looking for ways to reduce this problem. However, humans may perceive feedback about their environmental behavior as threatening. According to self-determination theory (SDT), threats decrease intrinsic motivation for behavior change. According to self-affirmation theory (SAT), threats can harm individuals' self-integrity. Therefore, individuals should show self-defensive biases, e.g., in terms of presenting counter-arguments when presented with environmental behavior change. The current study examines how change recipients respond to threats from change agents in interactions about environmental behavior change. Moreover, we investigate how Motivational Interviewing (MI) - an intervention aimed at increasing intrinsic motivation - can reduce threats at both the social and cognitive level. We videotaped 68 dyadic interactions with change agents who either did or did not use MI (control group). We coded agents verbal threats and recipients' verbal expressions of motivation. Recipients also rated agents' level of confrontation and empathy (i.e., cognitive reactions). As hypothesized, threats were significantly lower when change agents used MI. Perceived confrontations converged with observable social behavior of change agents in both groups. Moreover, behavioral threats showed a negative association with change recipients' expressed motivation (i.e., reasons to change). Contrary to our expectations, we found no relation between change agents' verbal threats and change recipients' verbally expressed self-defenses (i.e., sustain talk). Our results imply that MI reduces the adverse impact of threats in conversations about environmental behavior change on both the social and cognitive level. We discuss theoretical implications of our study in the context of SAT and SDT and suggest practical implications for environmental change agents in organizations.
人类行为导致了环境资源的浪费，我们的社会正在寻找减少这一问题的方法。然而，人类可能会将关于其环境行为的反馈视为一种威胁。根据自我决定理论（SDT），威胁会降低行为改变的内在动机。根据自我肯定理论（SAT），威胁会损害个体的自我完整性。因此，个体应该表现出自我防御偏见，例如，在面对环境行为改变时提出反驳观点。本研究考察了在关于环境行为改变的互动中，接受改变者如何应对来自改变推动者的威胁。此外，我们还研究了动机性访谈（MI）——一种旨在增强内在动机的干预措施——如何在社会和认知层面减少威胁。我们对68对与使用或未使用MI的改变推动者（对照组）的二元互动进行了录像。我们对推动者的言语威胁和接受者的动机言语表达进行了编码。接受者还对推动者的对抗程度和同理心水平（即认知反应）进行了评分。正如所假设的，当改变推动者使用MI时，威胁显著降低。在两组中，感知到的对抗与改变推动者可观察到的社会行为一致。此外，行为威胁与接受改变者表达的动机（即改变的理由）呈负相关。与我们的预期相反，我们发现改变推动者的言语威胁与接受改变者言语表达的自我防御（即维持谈话）之间没有关系。我们的结果表明，MI在社会和认知层面都减少了关于环境行为改变的对话中威胁的不利影响。我们在SAT和SDT背景下讨论了本研究的理论意义，并为组织中的环境改变推动者提出了实际意义。
