Z. (Žan) Mlakar, MSc

CURRENT PROJECTS

Public acceptability of climate policy

My main postdoc activity, part of the Horizon CAPABLE project. In this work package, we focus on examining a range of factors and research questions that affect the acceptance of climate policy in the EU. Our particular focus is on the policies that are a part of the Fit for 55 package and my personal interest relates mainly to how different policy package perceptions interact together to foster (impede) policy acceptance.

The role of minority consistency in social tipping

My final doctoral dissertation project, where I examine whether consistent minorities are better at converting people to their position than inconsistent minorities. Using a large-scale group experimental study, I find that minority consistency acts as a double-edged sword: a consistent minority is perceived as more confident, which in turn increases tipping likelihood, but also as more uncompromising, which leads to defensive responses and decreases tipping likelihood.

Social Convention Game: An experimental paradigm for studying social tipping

Another doctoral dissertation project, in which I develop a new experimental paradigm aimed at replicating minority-instigated social tipping in a lab setting. Through this, I attempt to provide researchers with a tool that enables them to study the role of different psychological factors in group tipping, thus allowing for an extension of findings that have so far only been established on an individual level without an over-time component.

The role of involvement and hypocrisy in environmental self-silencing

A side project in collaboration with Tabea Hoffmann, within which we examine why people often refuse to discuss issues related to environmental sustainability. We hypothesise that there are types of issues that people are more willing to discuss than others, with the key difference lying in whether the issue pertains to individual- or system-level change. When it comes to system-level change, people face fewer relational concerns and anticipate higher response efficacy, which makes it easier to discuss such issues.