. 2022 Sep 15;16:886600. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.886600

Table 1.

Open questions in environmental neuroscience.

Factor	Research questions
Individual factors	• What individual factors play a role in environmental attitudes, perception of green products, and sustainable behavior? • Is there a relationship between subject’s motivation to buy sustainable products and the affective response in the brain? • Can climate change images evoke affective brain responses? • Do interventions impact the motivation and consequently behavior of consumers to buy sustainable products? • Do interventions impact brain responses regarding sustainable decision-making? • How are the stages of behavior change such as attitude, intention, sustainable behavior, and habit pinpointed in the brain? • How do individual factors interact with the learning effects of interventions on the neural and behavioral level? • What individual or neural factors predict an individual’s transition from intention to action and from action to habit? • Can pro-environmental behavior be better predicted from neural measures or self-report? • What is the role of (pre)frontal cortices in the modulation of learning effects in the sustainability domain? • What level of evoked reward expectation as measured by neuroscience tools is required for behavior change? • Can the intervention be optimized for specific individual characteristics that exist within the population? • Does evaluative conditioning with climate change images impact perception of environmentally (un)friendly products in the brain? • What individual differences have effect on the type interventions for sustainable behavior are suited best? • To what extent is the strength of a habit impacting the effect of interventions on sustainable behavior?
Contextual factors	• How do contextual factors modulate brain responses to environmentally (un)friendly products? • How do contextual factors regulate attitude change effects on brain responses and pro-environmental behavior? • What intervention for sustainable behavior change is most effective? • Are interventions effective in targeting the effects of cognitive dissonance? • Are results of interventions comparable under different individual and contextual factors? • Which paradigm and media type for stimulus presentation is best suited for behavior interventions in order to evoke sustained neural and behavioral change? • Can nudging be implemented to evoke or maintain sustainable behavior change? • What are the effective nudging strategies?

Factor

Research questions

Individual factors

•
What individual factors play a role in environmental attitudes, perception of green products, and sustainable behavior?
•
Is there a relationship between subject’s motivation to buy sustainable products and the affective response in the brain?
•
Can climate change images evoke affective brain responses?
•
Do interventions impact the motivation and consequently behavior of consumers to buy sustainable products?
•
Do interventions impact brain responses regarding sustainable decision-making?
•
How are the stages of behavior change such as attitude, intention, sustainable behavior, and habit pinpointed in the brain?
•
How do individual factors interact with the learning effects of interventions on the neural and behavioral level?
•
What individual or neural factors predict an individual’s transition from intention to action and from action to habit?
•
Can pro-environmental behavior be better predicted from neural measures or self-report?
•
What is the role of (pre)frontal cortices in the modulation of learning effects in the sustainability domain?
•
What level of evoked reward expectation as measured by neuroscience tools is required for behavior change?
•
Can the intervention be optimized for specific individual characteristics that exist within the population?
•
Does evaluative conditioning with climate change images impact perception of environmentally (un)friendly products in the brain?
•
What individual differences have effect on the type interventions for sustainable behavior are suited best?
•
To what extent is the strength of a habit impacting the effect of interventions on sustainable behavior?

Contextual factors

•
How do contextual factors modulate brain responses to environmentally (un)friendly products?
•
How do contextual factors regulate attitude change effects on brain responses and pro-environmental behavior?
•
What intervention for sustainable behavior change is most effective?
•
Are interventions effective in targeting the effects of cognitive dissonance?
•
Are results of interventions comparable under different individual and contextual factors?
•
Which paradigm and media type for stimulus presentation is best suited for behavior interventions in order to evoke sustained neural and behavioral change?
•
Can nudging be implemented to evoke or maintain sustainable behavior change?
•
What are the effective nudging strategies?