BMF Collaborative Project 4: Urban residents’ biodiversity belief, perception, and consumption of animal-based products

AISDL

October 11, 2022


Highlight

• The AISDL team discloses the pre-peer-reviewed results of a research project exploring how people’s belief and perceptions of biodiversity affect their attitudes and behaviors toward consumption.
• The research project was contributed by four authors.
• The project’s outcome has been sent to the academic journal for peer review.
• The preprint of the research outcome can be found at the following URL: https://osf.io/b8pgu

More details of collaborative projects are available here: https://mindsponge.info/posts/39

1. Project Description

1.1. Background

Although biosphere integrity (determined by the rate of biodiversity loss) is one of two core planetary boundaries acknowledged as being essential to the Earth system [1], biodiversity loss is still happening at an unprecedented rate on Earth. A 68 percent average drop in population size was observed in the monitored populations between 1970 and 2016, according to the 2020 global Living Planet Index (LPI), which tracked almost 21,000 populations of 4,392 species [2]. In fact, many environmental scientists believe that we are already in the Sixth Mass Extinction event – mainly caused by humans’ unsustainable activities, including consuming products made from fur and leather [3-5]. Given the negative environmental impacts of unsustainable animal-product consumption, psychological studies are necessary to generate insights that can help reduce the unsustainable consumption of animal-based products.

1.2. Project Aims

The mindsponge mechanism suggests that for information to appear in the human mind and affect subsequent thinking and behaviors, it must pass through the mind’s subjective cost-benefit judgments [7,8]. Specifically, information is ejected from the mind if perceived as costly and absorbed into the mind if perceived as beneficial. Following this logic, we assumed that if people perceive biodiversity loss as costly by knowing its adverse consequences, they will be less likely to absorb information that is associated with biodiversity loss, such as using products made from animal fur and leather, resulting in more negative attitudes (personal preference) towards such products and actual consumption (ownership of fewer products). To investigate these assumptions in the context of Vietnam (see the reasoning below), we proposed the following research questions (RQs):

• RQ1: Are Vietnamese urban residents with higher perceived consequences of biodiversity loss less likely to be interested in consuming products made from animal fur and leather?
• RQ2: Do Vietnamese urban residents with higher perceived consequences of biodiversity loss obtain fewer numbers of products made from animal fur and leather?

However, human subjective cost-benefit judgments are greatly driven by the value system sculptured by their mindsets (or set of highly trusted values/beliefs), according to the mindsponge mechanism [8,9]. As a result, we also assumed that the effects of perception about biodiversity loss consequences on personal preference and ownership of products made from animal fur and leather would vary depending on their beliefs in biodiversity loss. In particular, it was expected that in the scenario where urban residents believe biodiversity loss is real and a major problem, the effects of biodiversity loss perception on personal preference and actual consumption would exist; on the other hand, when urban residents believe biodiversity loss is not real or not a significant problem, the effects of biodiversity loss perception would not exist. To test this assumption, the third research question was proposed:

• RQ3: Do the effects of Vietnamese urban residents’ biodiversity loss perception on their personal preference and actual consumption vary according to their beliefs about biodiversity loss?

1.3. Methods and Materials

The research project will employ the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 535 urban residents (from 35 cities across Vietnam) to accomplish the research objectives presented above [10,11]. The bayesvl R package will be employed for statistical analyses [12,13]. For more information on BMF analytics, portal users can refer to the following book [8].

1.4. Main Findings

Figure 1 presents some of the findings of the study. More details of the results are available at the following URL: https://osf.io/b8pgu.


Figure 1: The constructed model’s coefficient distributions

The results from Figure 1 can be interpreted as follows:

• In the scenarios where people believe biodiversity loss is not real or biodiversity loss is real but insignificant, the more they perceive the consequences of biodiversity loss, the higher probability of being keen on products made from animal skin/fur (green and blue lines, respectively). Moreover, people who do not believe in the existence of biodiversity loss have a greater likelihood of being interested in the products.
• In the scenario that people think biodiversity loss is real and a major problem, the more they perceive the consequences of biodiversity loss, the less preferable they are to products made from animal skin/fur (yellow line).

2. Collaboration Details

2.1. Current Collaboration Stage: Finalizing and submission stage

2.2. Registration Period: Closed

2.3. Registration Guidelines: Portal users should follow these steps to register to participate in this research project:

1. Create an account on the website (preferably using an institution email)
2. Read carefully and select the author order that you want to become. Each project consists of a certain number of authors, and each author order in the manuscript corresponds to specific tasks of which the participant will be in charge.
3. Comment your desired author order and your current affiliation in the collaborative project post.
4. Patiently wait for the formal agreement on the project from the AISDL mentor.

All the resources for conducting and writing the research manuscript will be distributed after the registration stage ends.

2.4. Number of Participants: This project has four participants.

2.5. AISDL Mentor

Name: Minh-Hoang Nguyen
Affiliation: Centre for Interdisciplinary Social Research, Phenikaa University, Vietnam
Contacting email: aisdl_team@mindsponge.info

2.6. Project Participants and Authorship

First author:

• Name: Minh-Hoang Nguyen
• Affiliation: Centre for Interdisciplinary Social Research, Phenikaa University, Vietnam
• Roles: being responsible for finalizing the project, being responsive throughout the project, conceptualizing, organizing the manuscript, assigning tasks, keeping track, supporting and guiding other participants, and editing the manuscript.

Second author (corresponding)

• Name: Tam-Tri Le
• Affiliation: Centre for Interdisciplinary Social Research, Phenikaa University, Vietnam
• Registering/invited time: September 02, 2022
• Roles: being responsive throughout the project, validating the manuscript, discussing results, writing the manuscript, submitting the manuscript, revising the manuscript during the peer-review process, and responding to reviewers’ comments.

Third author

• Name: Thomas E. Jones
• Affiliation: Graduate School of Asia Pacific Studies, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Japan
• Registering/invited time: September 02, 2022
• Roles: writing the manuscript and revising the manuscript during the peer-review process.

Last author

• Name: Quan-Hoang Vuong
• Affiliation: Centre for Interdisciplinary Social Research, Phenikaa University, Vietnam
• Registering/invited time: September 02, 2022
• Roles: validating the manuscript, supervising, writing the manuscript, and editing the manuscript.

The research project strictly adheres to scientific integrity standards, including authorship rights and obligations. If the portal users have any further inquiries, please get in touch with the AISDL in charge of the project.

References

[1] Steffen W, et al. (2015). Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet. Science, 347, 6223.

[2] Almond REA, Grooten M, & Petersen T. (2020). Living Planet Report 2020 - Bending the curve of biodiversity loss. World Wildlife Fund. https://livingplanet.panda.org/

[3] Kolbert E. (2014). The sixth extinction: an unnatural history. Bloomsbury Publishing.

[4] Pievani T. (2014). The sixth mass extinction: Anthropocene and the human impact on biodiversity. Rendiconti Lincei, 25, 85-93.

[5] Cowie RH, Bouchet P, Fontaine B. (2022). The Sixth Mass Extinction: fact, fiction or speculation? Biological Reviews, 97(2), 640-663.

[6] Vuong QH. (2022). Mindsponge theory. AISDL.

[7] Vuong QH, Napier NK. (2015). Acculturation and global mindsponge: an emerging market perspective. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 49, 354-367.

[8] Vuong QH, Nguyen MH, La VP. (2022). The mindsponge and BMF analytics for innovative thinking in social sciences and humanities. Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter.

[9] Nguyen MH, La VP, Le TT, Vuong QH. (2022). Bayesian Mindsponge Framework analytics: a novel methodological approach for social sciences and humanities. In: QH Vuong, MH Nguyen, VP La. (Eds.) The mindsponge and BMF analytics for innovative thinking in social sciences and humanities (pp 87-116). Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter.

[10] Nguyen MH. (2021). Multifaceted interactions between urban humans and biodiversity-related concepts: A developing-country data set. Data Intelligence, 3(4), 578–605.

[11] Nguyen MH, et al. (2022). Introduction to Bayesian Mindsponge Framework analytics: An innovative method for social and psychological research. MethodsX, 9, 101808.

[12] Vuong QH, et al. (2020). Bayesian analysis for social data: A step-by-step protocol and interpretation. MethodsX, 7, 100924.

[13] Vuong QH, Nguyen MH, La VP. (2022). Updated protocol for performing BMF analytics using bayesvl. In: QH Vuong, MH Nguyen, VP La. (Eds.) The mindsponge and BMF analytics for innovative thinking in social sciences and humanities (pp 301-370). Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter.