Stuart Oskamp

Factors Influencing Household Recycling Behavior

To investigate factors encouraging or deterring recycling, telephone interviews were used to study recycling behavior, attitudes, and knowledge of 221 randomly selected adults in a suburban city that had begun a citywide curbside recycling program within the past year. Approximately 40% reported participation in the curbside recycling program, and nearly 20% more claimed that their household had been recycling in other ways. Most demographic variables did not predict participation in the curbside recycling program, nor did general environmental attitudes and behaviors, though simple conservation knowledge did. The main significant predictors of curbside recycling were a few demographic variables, attitudes, and behavioral variables that pertained specifically to recycling. As predicted, factor analyses showed that there was no general factor underlying (a) various environmental attitudes and (b) various environmental behaviors, all of which might seem on an a priori basis to be related. Implications of the findings for understanding and promoting curbside recycling are discussed.

Green Buying: The Influence of Environmental Concern on Consumer Behavior

Abstract Variables that predict “green buying” (i.e., buying products that are environmentally beneficial) were investigated. Predictor variables included awareness about environmental impacts of products, specific environmental beliefs of consumers, several general environmental attitude scales, demographic variables, and several proenvironment behaviors other than buying behavior. A written questionnaire, mailed to randomly selected residents of 8 middle-class communities in the Los Angeles area, was answered by 201 respondents. The results of hierarchical multiple regression analyses supported the hypotheses under study: Specific consumer beliefs predicted several green-buying variables as well as general environmental attitudes, whereas general environmental attitudes predicted only one aspect of green buying. Women were significantly higher than men on two aspects of green buying and on the environmental attitude scales. Home ownership was positively related to recycling behavior.

WHO RECYCLES AND WHEN? A REVIEW OF PERSONAL AND SITUATIONAL FACTORS

Despite the societal importance of reusing waste materials, few empirical studies have specifically examined recycling behaviors as differentiated from attitudes and intentions. This paper reviews the empirical studies of recycling, summarizes research findings, and identifies areas for future research. The effects on recycling behavior of both personal variables (personality, demographics, and attitudes of environmental concern) and manipulable situational variables are reviewed. Results indicate that high income is a good predictor of recycling, whereas gender and age are not. General environmental concern appears to be related to recycling only when recycling requires a high degree of effort. However, relevant specific attitudes have consistently been found to correlate with recycling behavior. The seven situational variables reviewed (prompts, public commitment, normative influence, goal setting, removing barriers, providing rewards, and feedback) all produce significant increases in recycling behavior. However, there are several major limitations to the research. Results are based largely on single-variable assessments of recycling, and fail to consider interactions with characteristics of the environment or the population involved.

Factors Influencing Community Residents' Participation in Commingled Curbside Recycling Programs

Commingled curbside recycling, a system where household residents put all recyclable materials in one container, is a new form of recycling that has been initiated to decrease the amount of household waste sent to landfills. In a suburb with a new commingled program, a mail survey of environmental and recycling attitudes was sent to 603 households with a 76% response rate. Observations of actual recycling behavior showed a 68% average participation rate on five successive collection days, with a total participation rate of 91% over that period. Based on these observations, the level of self-reported participation was slightly overstated. Relevant recycling knowledge was the most significant predictor of observed recycling behavior, and content-specific motivations for or against recycling discriminated between frequent and infrequent recyclers. Relevant recycling knowledge and a few specific attitudinal measures were significant predictors of self-reported recycling behavior.

Psychology of Promoting Environmentalism: Psychological Contributions toAchieving an Ecologically Sustainable Future for Humanity

The most serious long-term threat facing the world is the danger that human actions are producing irreversible, harmful changes to the environmental conditions that support life on Earth. If this problem is not overcome, there may be no viable world for our descendants to inhabit. Because this threat is caused by human population growth, overconsumption, and lack of resource conservation, social scientists have a vital role in helping our world escape ecological disaster and approach a sustainable level of impact on the environment—one that can be maintained indefinitely. Enormous changes to human lifestyles and cultural practices may be required to reach this goal. This article discusses major obstacles to this goal, describes a variety of motivational approaches toward reaching it, and proposes that we should view the achievement of sustainable living patterns as a superordinate goal—a war against the common enemy of an uninhabitable world.

Diversity in organizations : new perspectives for a changing workplace

An Introduction to Diversity in Organizations - Martin M Chemers, Mark A Constanzo and Stuart Oskamp PART ONE: INDIVIDUAL REACTIONS TO DIVERSITY A Theoretical Framework for the Study of Diversity - Harry C Triandis Cultural Identity and Diversity in Organizations - Bernardo M Ferdman Bridging the Gap between Group Differences and Individual Uniqueness An Analysis of Work Specialization and Organization Level as Dimensions of Workforce Diversity - Taylor H Cox Jr and Jocelyn A Finley PART TWO: DIVERSITY EFFECTS ON GROUPS AND TEAMS Diversity, Power and Mentorship in Organizations - Belle Rose Ragins A Cultural, Structural and Behavioral Perspective Diversity in Decision-Making Teams - Valerie I Sessa and Susan E Jackson All Differences Are Not Created Equal Leadership and Diversity in Groups and Organizations - Martin M Chemers and Susan E Murphy PART THREE: ORGANIZATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON DIVERSITY Diversity in Organizations - Anne S Tsui, Terri D Egan and Katherine R Xin Lessons from Demography Research Organizational Implications of Diversity in Higher Education - Daryl G Smith A Diversity Framework - R Roosevelt Thomas Jr

The Effects of Picture Content and Exposure Frequency on Evaluations of Negroes and Whites.

Abstract Pictures of black and white stimulus persons were shown to 96 white college students with different exposure frequencies (0, 1, 5, or 10) for different picture. Subjects saw the stimulus persons either in positive settings, neutral settings, or negative settings. Analysis of variance of changes in trait ratings of the stimulus persons revealed significant effects due to content of the photographs, their frequency of exposure, and the content by exposure interaction. Contrary to Blumes results for black models, positive exposure significantly enhanced evaluations, and negative exposure decreased evaluations. White models showed primarily the positive effect. Overall, increasing exposure enhanced attitudes. This effect was very strong for positive stimuli, weak for neutral stimuli and slightly reversed for negative stimuli. Exposure effects and associative learning processes appear to operate in opposing directions for negative stimuli.

Health beliefs as predictors of HIV-preventive behavior and ethnic differences in prediction.

The incidence of a variety of safer-sex behaviors was predicted, using five measures from the Health Belief Model (Janz & Becker, 1984): perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, self-efficacy, social support, and perceived barriers. The participants, 424 U.S. undergraduates at six schools, completed a written questionnaire. The results of multiple regression analyses indicated that perceived susceptibility, self-efficacy, and social support predicted many safer-sex behaviors. Although the Health Belief Model predicted more safer-sex behaviors for Euro-American students than for Hispanic American, African American, and Asian American students, the present data indicated few differences among these ethnic groups regarding the level of safer-sex behaviors.

Predicting Three Dimensions of Residential Curbside Recycling: An Observational Study

Abstract Empirical knowledge about recycling behavior is needed to inform environmental education efforts and policy proposals. Three dimensions of household recycling behavior (frequency of participation, amount of recyclable materials, and contamination of recyclables by improper material) were observed in 705 households of a suburban residential community over an 8-week period. These dependent variables were predicted by a set of 10 independent variables: recycling knowledge, general environmental concern, community attachment, 3 demographic variables, and 4 specific recycling motivation factors. A different pattern of predictor variables was found for each of the dependent variables, and the results suggest that many of the variables that predicted recycling behavior in past research have weaker relationships in current, more convenient, curbside programs.

Effects of friendship and disliking on cooperation in a mixed-motive game1

The amount of friendship between two people seems likely to affect their degree of cooperative behavior in a joint task. Though this hypothesis has occasionally been suggested by psychologists (May and Doob, 1937, pp. 17-18; Solomon, 1960, p. 224), it has never been tested in a carefully controlled empirical study. Instead, many studies have attempted to eliminate any effects of friendship by using subjects (Ss) who were unacquainted. Scodel, Minas, Ratoosh, and Lipetz (1959, p. 118) suggest that one reason for the low levels of cooperation frequently obtained in mixedmotive game research is that strangers act in a guarded fashion toward each other. A previous experiment by the present authors (Oskamp and Perlman, 1965) found