The purpose of this chapter is to investigate the role of social incentives, specifically how changes in the social environment such as esteem, identity, cultural social norms, and social reference points affect individuals' behaviours. We will look into the role of envy and guilt as behavioural motivators, as well as the role of social norms as external signals and constraints on people's behaviours. Human interaction produces norms and social divisions, which create disutility or utility (oppositional or transgressive norms). Social norms are informal rules that govern behaviour in society and include shared social values, beliefs, attitudes, and/or behaviours. Social incentives are defined as "extraneous non-monetary stimuli" that influence an individual's perceived marginal benefit or cost of effort. Social incentives operate through social norms, social image, herd or social multiplier effects, narratives and can be strengthened through praise, attention, esteem, sense of belonging, feelings of meaning and loyalty. Stigma and status both are part of what we can define more widely as ‘esteem’, and can be both a positive or negative, and influence behaviour very much like a price in a market.

The current chapter examines factors predicting engagement and disengagement with climate change. After providing a baseline overview of climate change and public opinion on the topic, we explore how psychological motives might conflict with individuals’ desire to be accurate when considering climate change information. Next, we examine how individual differences in world views affect how individuals relate to climate change, focusing specifically on moral attitudes, social dominance orientation (SDO), neoliberal ideology, and attitudes towards system change as correlates of climate beliefs and engagement.Finally, we consider how social cues from both elites (such as politicians and scientists) and peers can serve as critical sources of information guiding individuals’ beliefs about and responses to climate change.

Social cues can create a sense of partnership between learners and the instructor, which then motivates learners to engage in generative processing. The personalization principle is that people learn better when multimedia lessons are presented in a conversational or polite style, rather than a formal or direct style. The voice principle is that people learn better when multimedia lessons are presented in a human voice rather than computer-generated voice. The image principle is that people do not necessarily learn better when the image of the instructor or a virtual agent is visible on the screen. Finally, the embodiment principle is that people learn better when onscreen pedagogical agents engage in human-like behaviors, such as gesture, eye-contact, or facial expressions.