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AbstractPeople differ in their comfort with tampering with the natural world. Although some see altering nature as a sign of human progress, others see it as dangerous or hubristic. Across four studies, we investigate discomfort with tampering with the natural world. To do so, we develop the Aversion to Tampering with Nature (ATN) Scale, a short scale that is the first to directly measure this discomfort. We identify six activities that people believe tamper with nature (geoengineering, genetically modified organisms, pesticides, cloning, gene therapy, and nanoparticles) and show that ATN scores are associated with opposition to these activities. Furthermore, the ATN Scale predicts actual behavior: donations to an anti‐tampering cause. We demonstrate that ATN is related to previously identified constructs including trust in technology, naturalness bias, purity values, disgust sensitivity, aversion to playing God, and environmental beliefs and values. By illuminating who is concerned about tampering with nature and what predicts these beliefs, the ATN Scale provides opportunities to better understand public opposition to technological innovations, consumer preferences for "natural" products, and strategies for science communication.

AbstractScholarship on climate information use has focused significantly on engagement with practitioners as a means to enhance knowledge use. In principle, working with practitioners to incorporate their knowledge and priorities into the research process should improve information uptake by enhancing accessibility and improving users' perceptions of how well information meets their decision needs, including knowledge credibility, understandability, and fit. Such interactive approaches, however, can entail high costs for participants, especially in terms of financial, human, and time resources. Given the likely need to scale up engagement as demand for climate information increases, it is important to examine whether and to what extent personal interaction is always a necessary condition for increasing information use. In this article, we report the results from two experimental studies using students as subjects to assess how three types of interaction (in-person meeting, live webinar, and self-guided instruction) affect different aspects of climate information usability. Our findings show that while in-person interaction is effective in enhancing understanding of climate knowledge, in-person interaction may not always be necessary, depending on the kinds of information involved and outcomes desired.

Background: Many sustainability initiatives are successful and produce results that benefit the environment. However, others miss the mark and fail to produce the desired outcome. Past research has typically focused on understanding why initiatives fail, without first considering differences in how they fail. Focus of the Article: This manuscript is related to Research and Evaluation—specifically, the social marketing concept it focuses on is evaluating the outcome of sustainability initiatives. Research Question: What are the different ways in which sustainability initiatives can fail? Program Design/Approach: A multi-day workshop of interdisciplinary behavioral sustainability scholars led to the identification of five systematic differences in how sustainability initiatives can fail, suggesting that failure can take on not only different levels of severity, but different forms altogether. Within this framework, we provide examples of each type of failure. Importance to the Social Marketing Field: We argue that diagnosing how instead of just why an initiative fails offers important insights that can reduce the likelihood of future failures—insights that may be missed by a narrow focus on the why behind any given failure. Recommendations for Research or Practice: The identification of the different ways in which sustainability initiatives fail can lead to improvements in the design and implementation of behavioral interventions, facilitating successful sustainability outcomes and preventing unintended outcomes. Specific recommendations are discussed for each type of failure. Limitations: The examples in our framework are not exhaustive, but are instead intended to be illustrative exemplars of each type of failure. Moreover, as our focus is on how sustainability initiatives fail, we do not attempt to diagnose why particular initiatives fail.