Identity and voluntary efforts for climate protection
通过实地实验，研究环境身份信念的正负冲击如何影响个人为气候保护付出的志愿努力，发现负面冲击（身份威胁）能显著增加努力，尤其对原本身份信念强的人效果更大。
Can voluntary contributions to public goods be motivated by identity concerns? In a theory-driven field experiment, we test how positive and negative shocks to subjects' environmental identity beliefs affect voluntary efforts for climate protection. In a real-effort task, subjects can generate donations that offset carbon emissions. Prior to the task, we manipulate subjects' beliefs about their environmental identity either positively or negatively compared to a control group. A negative shock to identity (‘identity threat’) increases effort by about 17% compared to our control group. This effect is largest for subjects that had a strong prior environmental identity belief. We find no evidence that a positive shock to identity does affect behavior. Our results are in line with some of the main predictions from the belief-based model of identity by Bénabou and Tirole (2011). They also have implications for policymakers and NGOs that want to encourage voluntary contributions to climate protection by leveraging people's identity concerns.