Hourly Workers Don’t Fret as Much About the Environment
Published at
iStock/Thinkstock(VANCOUVER, British Columbia) — The old adage “Time is money” may have more to do with personal attitudes about the environment than people realize.
According to University of British Columbia psychologists Ashley Whillans and Elizabeth Dunn, when people are paid by the hour rather than a salary, they tend to engage in less environmentally friendly behavior.
Whillans and Dunn analyzed five different studies in this regard and arrived at the conclusion that paying people a salary instead of by the hour would make them more environmentally aware.
The reason: “When time is perceived as valuable, individuals may become irrationally overprotective of their time. When facing even a trivial trade-off, people are less likely to engage in environmental behavior when they put a price tag on their time.”
Whillans and Dunn admit that some of the differences between salaries and hourly workers were relatively small but note that “subtle changes in environmental behavior can translate into meaningful differences when multiplied by a large number of individuals.”
Follow @ABCNewsRadio
Copyright © 2015, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.