Marine debris and beach litter pose serious threats to the environment and coastal economies. This project examined the economic ramifications of marine debris and the public’s willingness to participate in mitigation. The specific objectives were to analyze the economic value of having a clean beach and to ask: why do people litter? This was accomplished first by collecting and summarizing existing research regarding the state of marine debris and the value of beaches in California. This information shaped a case study, which employed a survey tool to: (1) perform a contingent valuation to quantify the willingness of beach-goers to take part in cleaning the beach, as measured by their willingness to financially contribute to this goal and (2) ask questions meant to uncover some of the social issues associated with marine debris, such as why people litter at all. Armed with the knowledge of the value of a clean beach to the public, one can identify an efficient level of cleanup and maximize the net value of beaches to society. This information can also be used to identify whether litter is best managed at the source, or once it has made it into the environment. Of the 76 people surveyed, 60.5% were willing to pay a fee of at least $1 to go toward a cleanup effort. In addition, survey responses indicated that the top reason people litter is a lack of caring/respect. Improving the efficiency of marine debris management, whether economically or socially, can save money and more importantly help protect the ocean.

The world is facing an overwhelming number of social and environmental challenges that necessitate immediate, collaborative action. Despite numerous efforts, campaigns, and calls for action, tractable change in the public's response is sluggish. Therefore, we need a better understanding of the barriers to and motivators for action (e.g., prosocial behavior, resource conservation). This dissertation is a first step to addressing this as it explores individuals' prosocial choices and behaviors, as well as certain factors underlying them within the domains of charitable giving, pro-environmental choice, and climate change judgments. The first two chapters provide an account of individuals' aversion to overhead in charitable giving. Chapter 1 describes how higher overhead spending decreases giving and that overhead aversion is largely explained by a decrease in the perceived impact of one's donation. A large field experiment demonstrates that covering overhead costs with outside funds significantly increases giving compared to traditional fundraising techniques. Chapter 2 focuses on nonprofit executive (CEO) pay, a particularly aversive type of overhead. As the salary of a nonprofit CEO increases, the likelihood that individuals will donate decreases. Moreover, individuals are willing to "undercut" a qualified CEO by offering him/ her significantly less money for a job if the organization is described as a nonprofit versus a for profit. Chapters 3 and 4 explore underlying factors that increase consumers' choice of green products and shed light on the psychology involved in climate change judgments. Chapter 3 finds that green choice is largely and consistently explained by real-time accessibility of eco-friendly concepts---exposing individuals to green concepts prior to making a decision increases the likelihood they choose green products. Chapter 4 delves into the local warming effect, a phenomenon in which perceived abnormalities in current outdoor temperature influence climate change judgments. Results suggest the local warming effect arises due to attribute substitution, whereby individuals use accessible but irrelevant information over harder to process but more diagnostic information in making their judgments. This body of work improves our understanding of individuals' motivators and barriers to action in areas of critical global concern---charitable behavior, resource conservation, and climate change action

Despite the ongoing need for shark conservation and management, prevailing negative sentiments marginalize these animals and legitimize permissive exploitation. These negative attitudes arise from an instinctive, yet exaggerated fear, which is validated and reinforced by disproportionate and sensationalistic news coverage of shark 'attacks' and by highlighting shark-on-human violence in popular movies and documentaries. In this study, we investigate another subtler, yet powerful factor that contributes to this fear: the ominous background music that often accompanies shark footage in documentaries. Using three experiments, we show that participants rated sharks more negatively and less positively after viewing a 60-second video clip of swimming sharks set to ominous background music, compared to participants who watched the same video clip set to uplifting background music, or silence. This finding was not an artifact of soundtrack alone because attitudes toward sharks did not differ among participants assigned to audio-only control treatments. This is the first study to demonstrate empirically that the connotative attributes of background music accompanying shark footage affect viewers' attitudes toward sharks. Given that nature documentaries are often regarded as objective and authoritative sources of information, it is critical that documentary filmmakers and viewers are aware of how the soundtrack can affect the interpretation of the educational content.