Raymond De Young

Changing Behavior and Making it Stick The Conceptualization and Management of Conservation Behavior

A sustainable planet is not possible without patterns of conserving behavior. The resource-costly life-styles that are characteristic of the current scene present a historic challenge. Never before have so many behaviors needed to change in so short a time. More challenging is that they must stay changed. For many reasons the techniques commonly used to promote conservation behavior are more reliable at modulating short-term behavior than at achieving durable change. The perceived urgency of environmental problems tends to make immediate behavior change the major focus. But of equal importance is the stability of behavior once changed. Thus one goal of conservation behavior research is to discover techniques that change individual behavior while minimizing or eliminating the need for repeated intervention. This article categerorizes behavior change techniques first by their informational or motivational nature and second by the source of the change: derived from others or gained by direct personal involve...A sustainable planet is not possible without patterns of conserving behavior. The resource-costly life-styles that are characteristic of the current scene present a historic challenge. Never before have so many behaviors needed to change in so short a time. More challenging is that they must stay changed. For many reasons the techniques commonly used to promote conservation behavior are more reliable at modulating short-term behavior than at achieving durable change. The perceived urgency of environmental problems tends to make immediate behavior change the major focus. But of equal importance is the stability of behavior once changed. Thus one goal of conservation behavior research is to discover techniques that change individual behavior while minimizing or eliminating the need for repeated intervention. This article categerorizes behavior change techniques first by their informational or motivational nature and second by the source of the change: derived from others or gained by direct personal involvement. Evaluating selected techniques using five proposed dimensions suggests why durable behavior change has been so hard to achieve. Research implications are discussed.

New Ways to Promote Proenvironmental Behavior: Expanding and Evaluating Motives for Environmentally Responsible Behavior

This article contends that while striving to promote environmentallyresponsible behavior, we have focused attention too narrowly on just two classes of motives. There is a need to expand the range of motives available to practitioners and to provide a framework within which motives can be evaluated for both their immediate and long-term effectiveness. The article then examines a strategy for promoting environmentally responsible behavior that has significant potential. This strategy is based on a particular form of motivation called intrinsic satisfaction. Nine studies are reviewed that have outlined the structure of intrinsic satisfaction. A key theme discussed is the human inclination for competence. This fundamental human concern is shown to have both a general form and a resource-specific version.

Some Psychological Aspects of Reduced Consumption Behavior The Role of Intrinsic Satisfaction and Competence Motivation

Efforts to promote environmentally appropriate behavior rely on motivation originating from 3 sources: other people, the environment, and ones self. This article examines a particular form of the latter source, intrinsic satisfactions. Nine studies are presented that investigate the multidimensional structure of intrinsic satisfactions and their relationship to reduced consumption behavior. Two categories of intrinsic satisfaction, labeled frugality and participation, are particularly well suited to encouraging such behavior. A third category, competence motivation, is explored in some detail and its dimensional structure is interpreted in terms of 3 dominant themes in the research literature. Connections between intrinsic satisfactions and such concepts as locus of control and altruism are explored, and implications for practitioners are discussed.Efforts to promote environmentally appropriate behavior rely on motivation originating from 3 sources: other people, the environment, and ones self. This article examines a particular form of the ...

Exploring the Difference Between Recyclers and Non-Recyclers: The Role of Information

This article reports on a pilot study which explored how recyclers and non-recyclers differ. Two hundred households were first identified by direct observation over a series of months being either recyclers or non-recyclers. These households were then contacted and ninety-one respondents agreed to answer a series of verbal questions and complete a short written questionnaire. While from a preliminary study, these data are useful in suggesting that recyclers and non-recyclers are similar in their prorecycling attitudes, extrinsic motivation, and the degree to which they viewed recycling as a trivial activity. They differed significantly, however, in the degree to which they required additional information about recycling. Non-recycling respondents indicated a lack of information on how to carry out the activity. The study is also of interest due to the isolation of attitudinal and behavioral aspects of recycling. Since some form of relationship between these two constructs is so pervasive in the literature, the results are conceptually intriguing. Perhaps more important, however, are the practical implications for enabling non-recyclers to change their behavior independently of their attitudes. In addition to accumulating great wealth, an affluent society generates an enormous quantity of solid waste [1 ,2] . For instance, in 1971 Americans discarded over 125 million tons of solid waste; by 1988 the quantity amounted to over 160 million tons and current projections indicate that by 1990 the amount could top 200 million tons. The standard waste disposal practice of landfilling, questionable on ecological grounds, is now a politically unacceptable option. Siting new landfills and expanding old ones are difficult tasks. Yet our waste management options are

Some Psychological Aspects of Recycling The Structure of Conservation - Satisfactions

This article focuses on satisfactions derived from the recycling of household solid waste materials. Data from 107 respondents to a mail-back questionnaire were subjected to dimensional analysis and analysis of variance. The results indicatethat people derive a series of separate and distinct satisfactions from both recycling and reusing materials. The satisfactions were quite specific, involving, for example, frugality and participation. These findings suggest that our understanding of why people bother to conserve resources may be improved by investigating the personal satisfactions derived from conservation activities.This article focuses on sati:sfactions derived from the recycling of household solid waste materials. Data from 107 respondents to a mail-back questionnaire were subjected to dimension~1 analysis and analysis of variance. The results indicate that people derive a series of separate and distinct satisfactions from both recycling and reusing materials. The satisfactions were quite specific, involving, for exampl·e, frugality and participation. These findings suggest that our understanding of why people bother to conserve resources may be improved by investigating the personal satisfactions derived from conservation activities.

Woodlots in the rural landscape: landowner motivations and management attitudes in a Michigan (USA) case study

Abstract Woodlots provide important environmental benefits in the Midwestern (USA) landscape, where they are undergoing rapid change. An increasingly diverse farm and non-farm population owns these non-industrial private forests (NIPFs). It is essential to understand what motivates NIPF landowners to retain and manage their forests. We describe a study of NIPF owners in an agricultural watershed where forest cover is increasing. What motivations and management practices might be contributing to this increase? The results of a survey of 112 NIPF owners suggest that aesthetic appreciation is the strongest motivator for retaining woodlots, especially by non-farmers. Protecting the environment also seems to be important for both farmers and non-farmers, while economic motivations are significantly less important. Landowners indicated that they are primarily taking a “hands-off” approach to management. This study provides insights for those interested in understanding NIPF landowners’ motivations and for developing effective programs.

Altruism and selfishness.

Many situations in human life present choices between (a) narrowly preferred particular alternatives and (b) narrowly less preferred (or aversive) particular alternatives that nevertheless form part of highly preferred abstract behavioral patterns. Such alternatives characterize problems of self-control. For example, at any given moment, a person may accept alcoholic drinks yet also prefer being sober to being drunk over the next few days. Other situations present choices between (a) alternatives beneficial to an individual and (b) alternatives that are less beneficial (or harmful) to the individual that would nevertheless be beneficial if chosen by many individuals. Such alternatives characterize problems of social cooperation; choices of the latter alternative are generally considered to be altruistic. Altruism, like self-control, is a valuable temporally-extended pattern of behavior. Like self-control, altruism may be learned and maintained over an individuals lifetime. It needs no special inherited mechanism. Individual acts of altruism, each of which may be of no benefit (or of possible harm) to the actor, may nevertheless be beneficial when repeated over time. However, because each selfish decision is individually preferred to each altruistic decision, people can benefit from altruistic behavior only when they are committed to an altruistic pattern of acts and refuse to make decisions on a case-by-case basis.

Recycling as appropriate behavior: a review of survey data from selected recycling education programs in Michigan

De Young, R., 1990. Recycling as appropriate behaviour: a review of survey data from selected recycling education programs in Michigan. Resour. Conserv. RecycL, 3: 253-266. Data from surveys conducted by six separate recycling education programs funded under the Clean Michigan Fund are compared. The findings indicate that a strong pro-recycling attitude exists among the populations sampled with a significant percentage of respondents planning to increase their level of recycling in the future. To aid this increase in participation these data suggest that education efforts should focus on helping people become more familiar with the details of how to recycle. And finally, these data support the idea that efforts to promote waste reduction and recycling behavior should focus on non-monetary motives.

Farmers' attitudes about farming and the environment: a survey of conventional and organic farmers

Farmers have been characterized as people whose ties to the land have given them a deep awareness of natural cycles, appreciation for natural beauty and sense of responsibility as stewards. At the same time, their relationship to the land has been characterized as more utilitarian than that of others who are less directly dependent on its bounty. This paper explores this tension by comparing the attitudes and beliefs of a group of conventional farmers to those of a group of organic farmers. It was found that while both groups reject the idea that a farmer’s role is to conquer nature, organic farmers were significantly more supportive of the notion that humans should live in harmony with nature. Organic farmers also reported a greater awareness of and appreciation for nature in their relationship with the land. Both groups view independence as a main benefit of farming and a lack of financial reward as its main drawback. Overall, conventional farmers report more stress in their lives although they also view themselves in a caretaker role for the land more than do the organic farmers. In contrast, organic farmers report more satisfaction with their lives, a greater concern for living ethically, and a stronger perception of community. Finally, both groups are willing to have their rights limited (organic farmers somewhat more so) but they do not trust the government to do so.

Factors Influencing Individual Recycling Behavior in Office Settings: A Study of Office Workers in Taiwan

This study explores office recycling behavior and its antecedents through a survey administered to 1,788 workers in Taipei, Taiwan. The instrument measured household and office recycling behavior, commitment to and motives for recycling, and the convenience of carrying out recycling in their office settings. Prior experience was shown to be an excellent predictor of office-based conservation behavior. However, to be effective, prior experience must be of the same specificity as the office behavior being predicted. Thus prior experience with general household recycling was effective at predicting general office recycling behavior, but was unable to predict more specific recycling behavior. Likewise, prior experience with a particular material—In this instance paper—predicted office conservation behavior with respect to that material alone. Organizational commitment and individual commitment were found to be modest predictors of office-based conservation behavior, although economic motivation was not found to be a particularly effective predictor of such behavior. Implications for office-based recycling programs are discussed.