Clive Seligman

The Evaluation of Information Campaigns to Promote Voluntary Household Water Conservation

Save-water campaigns are the most common tools for promoting household water conservation. Despite their popularity, there is some debate about how effective they are. In this article, the authors provide a representative review of the summative evaluations of persuasive conservation programs. It is concluded that there is an underuse of quasi-experimental techniques and qualitative analysis. Most have been too broad to allow for specific suggestions for improving campaigns. In the second half of the review, an outline of a communications model is offered and literature relating to both input and output variables pertaining to persuasion summarized. Gaps in understanding are identified. The need to systematically research behavioral change models to improve understanding and performance of persuasive water conservation campaigns is discussed.

Perceptual contrast versus reciprocal concession as mediators of induced compliance

This study examined two explanations for the success of a compliance strategy in which a second moderate-sized request is asked immediately after the refusal of a first largesized request. The reciprocal concessions explanation argues that the change from the first request to the second is viewed as a concession on the part of the requestor that compels the subject to make a concession of his own, i.e., agree to the second request. The perceptual contrast explanation proposes that the first request establishes a comparison standard against which the second request appears to be less costly; without the first request, the second request might be compared with the possibility of doing nothing for the requestor. The results supported the view that the critical manipulation in eliciting compliance is the reduction of relative cost to the subject and not the personal concession shown by the requestor.

Evaluating a Television Campaign to Promote Petrol Conservation

A quasi-experimental evaluation of the effects of a television campaign to encourage petrol conservation was conducted in three cities in New South Wales, Australia. Intensive four-week television campaigns were conducted in two of the cities; the third served as a control. Approximately 400 respondents selected randomly in each city answered questionnaires (half before and half after the television campaign). The results showed that the pro-petrol conservation films, regardless of theme (saving money or good citizenship), had small but statistically significant effects on most measures of attitudes and beliefs, intention to save petrol in the future, and self-reported conservation behaviors. The results were discussed with regard to the role that televised, brief, public service announcements can play in an overall conservation strategy.

Multiplicity Across Cultures: Multiple National Identities and Multiple Value Systems:

When we ask ourselves the question ‘Who am I?’, we usually utilize various self-descriptions through which we defined ourselves in the past. Those self-definitions may depend on group memberships, roles and social categories such as culture or religion. We were interested in the question of whether people with dual national identities associate distinct national value systems with each of those identities. In particular, we had focused on first and second generation Asian-Canadians and tested the hypothesis that distinct value systems are linked to each of one’s two national identities. Participants of South-East and East Asian origin or descent completed Schwartz’s (1992) value survey, once as Asians and once as Canadians. The participants revealed discrepancies in how they ranked the value types when instructed to do so as Canadians and as Asians. Specifically, the value types of universalism, self-direction, hedonism and stimulation were rated as significantly more important when participants were responding as Canadians, and the value types of conformity and tradition were rated significantly higher when the same participants were responding as Asians. These results are consistent with the results of other research that compares separate samples in Asia and in the West. But, the present research is fairly unusual in its examination and demonstration of separate value systems within individuals who have two national identities. The implications of having separate value systems associated with each of one’s national identities for the interplay between self-identification and culture and for value theory are discussed.

Factors Motivating Community Participation in Regional Water-Allocation Planning: A Test of an Expectancy-Value Model

The attitudinal determinants of intention to participate in planning for water allocation were assessed among residents of Jandakot, Western Australia. An expectancy-value attitudinal model was developed to assess the relationship between intention to participate and (a) attitudes towards the process of public involvement, (b) subjective norms, and (c) attitudes towards possible outcomes of involvement. It was hypothesised that other attitudinal variables associated with intention to participate would be mediated through these variables. The model was tested against alternative explanatory variables including centrality, self efficacy, political efficacy, and moral norms. Regression analyses indicated that behavioural intention was best predicted by centrality, attitudes towards the process, and subjective norms. Thus the model was not wholly supported. The results are discussed in terms of the development of the theory of centrality and the roles of process and outcome in the evaluation of regional versus neighbourhood public-involvement programs.

Optimal distinctiveness, values, and uncertainty orientation: Individual differences on perceptions of self and group identity

The present study investigated whether predictions made by optimal distinctiveness theory (Brewer, 1991) could be moderated by individual differences in uncertainty orientation, and whether optimal distinctiveness has implications for how people perceive their values relative to comparison groups. It was hypothesized that certainty-oriented persons, compared to uncertainty-oriented ones, should place greater importance on and see themselves as more similar in values to relevant comparison groups, when the need for assimilation is aroused but not necessarily when the need for differentiation is activated. One hundred five men and women, pre-assessed for their level of uncertainty orientation, were asked to describe two situations where they felt too immersed in or too apart from others around them. They then rated the importance of several reference groups and the importance of 10 value types for the self, their ethnic group, and other students at their university. The results supported the hypotheses.

A Two-Factor Model of Energy and Water Conservation

“In the middle of the 20th century, we saw our planet from space for the first time. Historians may eventually find that this vision had a greater impact on thought than did the Copernican revolution of the 16th century, which upset the human self-image by revealing that the Earth is not the center of the universe. From space, we see a small and fragile ball dominated not by human activity and edifice but by a pattern of clouds, oceans, greenery, and soils. Humanity’s inability to fit its doings into that pattern is changing planetary systems, fundamentally. Many such changes are accompanied by life-threatening hazards. This new reality, from which there is no escape, must be recognized—and managed.” (Our Common Future: The World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED, 1987, p. 1).

Evaluating the impact of utility company billing plans on residential energy consumption

Abstract Many utility companies offer their customers the choice of participation in an average payment plan, which enables them to pay a fixed sum for their utility bill each month (with final settlement at the end of the billing year), instead of the conventional “pay as you go” billing procedure. Because customers on average payment plans are protected from paying large bills during peak energy-use seasons and because the information about monthly energy use and its cost is perhaps less salient to them, it was hypothesized that customers on the average payment plan would use more electricity than customers not on the plan. Using a nonequivalent control group design, the electricity consumption of a selection of customers of two utility companies (Ns = 475 and 74) was examined. The results showed that there was no evidence to support the hypothesis. Since the logic of hypothesis testing does not permit the ready acceptance of the null hypothesis, several procedural, methodological, and statistical points were made to buttress the conclusion that the average payment plans had no effect on electricity consumption.