Economics

Last week, the only social psychology that I connected to a class came from Environmental Economics. I went to my first session of training for my new job at Lush today, though, and of course any jobs with sales has to do with social psychology.

Environmental Economics: We began to talk about green jobs, and why so many companies are becoming more and more green. Sometimes, the reason for these companies to become more environmentally friendly is not to be environmentally friendly. Green jobs attract employees, because if a person is choosing between two workplaces, and they're about the same, they pay the same, etc., but one of them is green and the other one isn't, they will likely choose the green job. Also, we talked about this concept applying to Meredith. For Meredith, being green attracts employees, tuition-paying students, donors, and lets people in the community hear about the college because of certain events Meredith holds as well. Therefore, being green is not only beneficial to the environment, but actually moreso beneficial to companies at an economical standpoint. Being green on a small scale makes us feel better, due to cognitive dissonance. If we think of ourselves as good people, and a commercial tells us that good people recycle and encourage others to recycle, green jobs are attractive because we can continue to be good people!