Using Psychology to Save the Environment

Robert Cialdini was one of my favorite author/scholar/researchers to study in college. His work is full of interesting studies on influence, communication and messaging. A recent study he conducted with two graduate students shows how specific phrasing can encourage environmentally-sound behavior.

"What works better: Keep Off the Grass or Save the Planet? Psychologists are discovering the types of words and messages that encourage environmentally friendly behaviors. Field research – whether in hotels or literally in the field – are helping everyone from the U.S. Forest Service to conservation-minded businesses to safeguard natural resources more effectively...

Cialdini's colleagues found their hotel results consistent with the social psychological theory that when people are figuring out what to do in a new situation, they take their cue from what seems to be other people's normal behavior – the social norm. Thus, descriptive norm messages that say, “Everybody's doing it!” to promote conservation-minded actions may be most effective.

Meanwhile, in situations requiring people not to do something, injunctive-proscriptive messages (“Don't go off the trail” and “Don't take the wood”) seem to work. In fact, Winter found that an injunctive-proscriptive message was twice as effective in deterring off-trail hiking as a descriptive-prescriptive message (“Stay on the trail.”) Given this evidence, she believes that in this situation, saying “Don't do this” is the most direct route to gaining compliance."

Read the entire abstract here:Shaping Pro-Environment Behaviors

Via TriplePundit