CEE 181 Honors Enrichment Project
The Psychology of Sustainability
An interactive simulator that explores how financial incentives, information, and social influence shape the everyday decisions people make about energy, transportation, and consumption.
Why do some sustainability interventions influence people more effectively than others?
How the simulator works
Each session takes about five to seven minutes. You will face three realistic, hypothetical situations under randomly assigned financial circumstances.
Face a scenario
Read a short situation and the circumstances you have been assigned.
Make a choice
Choose what you would do and indicate what most influenced you.
See an intervention
Receive one evidence-based intervention: an incentive, information, or a social cue.
Choose again
Decide again, then compare your choices and learn the principles behind them.
Three kinds of intervention
Behavioral research identifies several ways to encourage sustainable choices. The simulator tests three of the most widely studied.
Changing the price
Rebates, subsidies, and small fees alter the immediate cost of a choice, which people tend to weigh more heavily than future savings.
Making costs visible
Lifetime cost and emissions comparisons translate abstract impacts into concrete figures that are easier to evaluate.
Showing what others do
Descriptive norms, information about the choices of similar people, can make a behavior feel normal and expected.
Connection to CEE 181
The project applies course themes, including complex adaptive systems, sustainability, technological development, and social responsibility, to a practical question: how might technology be used to understand and encourage more sustainable human behavior?