Spatial Identity and Response to Climate Change

There is growing literature to suggest that spatial attributes such as geographical location, weather variation, and soil quality, play a role in shaping human behaviour such as preferences on risk and trust preferences. Historical climate variation, specific to certain geographies like coastal areas, can influence the nature of the communities and institutions that develop within them, in particular the formation of cooperative social and political institutions. Building on these assumptions, we attribute to each geography a stock-level of environmental shocks. Such shocks may be both real (e.g. weather hazards) or perceived (e.g. psychological threat from weather hazards). We wish to understand how exposure of individuals and groups living in any given location, subject to environmental shocks, both perceived and real, over a period of time may shape individual and community behaviour. We aim to understand the role of variation in environmental shocks in shaping individual-level preferences, such as trust and risk, and its implications on cooperative behaviours. In addition, trust and risk preferences involve their intergenerational transfer within members of the same group through formal or informal institutions. This may lead individuals to form a unique ‘spatial identity’ which is a composite of risk and trust preferences. We argue that such a spatial identity may influence cooperation outcomes, especially in public goods settings, such as response to climate change. Cooperation outcomes may be linked with underlying social norms which determine the response to collective risks faced. The study aims to understand the role of such a ‘spatial identity’ which leads to climate change adaptation or mitigation. The study is set up as a lab-based experiment with undergraduate university students in coastal universities in Gujarat and Kerala, India.