Understanding pro-environmental decision making: an agent-based modelling approach

The Centre for National Training and Research Excellence in Understanding Behaviour (Centre-UB) is inviting applications for a Doctoral Studentship in association with our collaborative partner [The James Hutton Institute] to start in October 2025.

Individuals make decisions that have environmental consequences every day. For example, when an item such as a chair is broken, we have to decide whether to repair it ourselves, arrange for having it fixed, or discard it and buy a new one. The first repair option is the most sustainable, as it ensures the longevity of the item, reduces waste, and minimises costs, benefiting the environment. Such decisions, which help promote positive environmental benefits, are important for societal and economic development.

Nevertheless, individuals often struggle to make pro-environmental decisions and behave accordingly, for various reasons including those outside the control of individuals. For example, products can be manufactured following planned obsolescence principles hence unrepairable, individuals may not have the necessary skills in repairing, repair shops are not always available, and sustainable alternatives may not exist in product categories. Additionally, pro-environmental decisions are influenced by cultural expectations, social norms, and socio-economic backgrounds. At an individual level, pro-environmental decisions are effortful and time-consuming (e.g., individuals require particular skills, resources, and time to fix a chair). This interaction between individual and systemic factors raises important questions concerning the mechanisms underpinning pro-environmental decisions – what socio-psychological factors make pro-environmental decisions more likely to occur and under what circumstances. All remain relevant for academics, policymakers, and stakeholders designing interventions to encourage positive behaviour change.

Recently, agent-based-modelling (ABM), a computational approach to simulate actions and interactions of individual entitled within a defined environment over time, has been successfully applied in environmental psychology. This PhD project will apply the recent developments in ABM to comprehensively understand, explain, and ideally predict pro-environmental behaviours with both large-scale secondary data and novel experimental data.

This is an interdisciplinary, fully funded 4-year PhD studentship co-designed by the University of Birmingham (School of Psychology, Birmingham Business School) and The James Hutton Institute (Social, Economic and Geographical Sciences Department).

We are looking for a highly talented and dedicated PhD student with a 1st class or 2:1 degree in the field of understanding human behaviour, such as psychology, social science, behavioural economics, consumer behaviour, cognitive science, social science, computer science, data science, or related fields. An MSc degree in a relevant area is desirable though not necessary. Previous experience with programming and quantitative methods would be a distinct advantage.

To be considered for this PhD, please follow the instructions here. https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/centre-ub/centre-ub-phd-studentships

Application deadline: 5 March 2025

Informal enquiries about the project prior to application can be directed to Dr Lei Zhang l.zhang.13@bham.ac.uk, Prof Caroline Moraes c.moraes@bham.ac.uk, or Dr Tony Craig tony.craig@hutton.ac.uk.

Funding notes:

Centre-UB studentships cover tuition fees, a maintenance stipend, support for research training, as well as research activity support grants. Due to funding stipulations set by UKRI, we are able to recruit up to 30% of international applicants to the cohort each year. You can find further details https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/centre-ub/centre-ub-phd-studentships