Research findings relevant to EE Paradigm I:
Systematic behavior-change campaigns

A. Identifying and targeting behaviors

Targeting behaviors to change or maintain

1) Relevant behaviors should be sustainable in both ecological and social terms. Failure to ensure an achievable but significant goal compromises efforts to attain it.

2) Based on careful analysis of empirical data, ractitioners and community partners should create short list of potential specific behaviors, considering:

-Impact or importance of the behavior to the problem
-What barriers exist for the target audience?
-Feasibility of overcoming barriers & changing or maintaining the behavior
-Whether the ideal behavior, or close approximations, already exist in the community.
-Value, where possible, of emphasizing positive, opportunity-oriented view, rather than one frame in terms of problems. 3) Key factors that influence, motivate, or determine critical behaviors - program must be able to control some - ideally the most influential in the given situation:
-Actors' perception of benefits & barriers (usually very behavior-specific)
-Knowledge, values, skills
-Time & place-specific information needs
-Social norms
-Cost & incentives (time, money, self-esteem, symbolic rewards, etc)
-Service or product availability
-Socio-cultural factors (gender, age, race, language, etc.)
  • McKenzie-Mohr, D. (1999). Fostering sustainable behavior. URL: http://www.cbsm.com/
  • Byers, B. A. (1996). Understanding and influencing behaviors in conservation and natural resources management. African Biodiversity Series No. 4. Washington, D.C.: Biodiversity Support Program.


    • B. Approaches to influencing behavior

    Processes of social Influence

    Note: Advertisers are honest about this; self-consciousness about it can be uncomfortable, but its useful and important. Use of such techniques with children must be justified by higher values they are to serve, and eventual aim of self-awareness and autonomy.

    1) Reciprocity: If someone does something for us, we tend to repay.

    -We feel a general obligation to repay favors - but not if the favor is really not so free, or if the exchange is unfair.
    -Rejection & retreat: Ask for lots, get rejected, then ask for smaller amount: the retreat to smaller is perceived as a favor to be repaid.
    2) Commitment and consistency
    -Behavior follows commitment (see cognitive dissonance, below)
    -Change one's self-image, and behavior will change to be consistent with it.
    -foot in the door technique
    3) Social proof - tendency to see behavior as appropriate or not because other are/ are not doing it. Fitting in. Fads. "Testimonials."
    -cf 'By-stander effect' & dilution of social responsibility
    4) Liking - Physical attractiveness, similarity, compliments, getting familiar, being bearer of good news.

    5) Authority - using expertise & trappings of power for persuasion.

    6) Scarcity - opportunities seem to be more valuable when they are scarce.
     

  • Cialdini, R. B. (1985). Influence: Science and practice. Glenview, Ill. : Scott, Foresman.

    • Theory of Reasoned Action and Planned Behavior


     

    Applies to behaviors over which target audience has volitional control.
     

  • Fishbein M. & Ajzen I. (1975). Belief, attitude intention and behavor: An introduction to theory and research. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Pub.
  • Manfredo M. (Ed.) 1992). Influencing human behavior: Theory and applications in recreation, tourism and natural resources management. Campaign, IL: Sagamore Pub.

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    Norm-internalization:

    What makes individuals follow the rules, when they can gain by breaking them?

    Cognitive Dissonance theory

    1) Assumption: People cannot tolerate inconsistency and will work to eliminate or reduce it whenever it exists.

    2) Dissonant state aroused by holding 2 cognitions that are psychologically inconsistent. (I.e., I believe this way, but just acted that way; or hold belief x and its opposite, belief y; etc.)

    3) This is unpleasant>> motivates reduction by greater consonance. Greater the dissonance, the harder the person tries to reduce it.

    4) Reduce dissonance between an act and an attitude by the following:

    -avoid discrepant information
    -change attitude to fit behavior
    -change behavior to fit the attitude
    -reevaluate the importance of the attitude or the behavior
    -bolster with new information either one's beliefs about one's behavior or one's attitude that make inconsistency less serious
    5) Dissonance is more likely if one publicly commits oneself to a course of action that is inconsistent with private attitudes, while believing one has a genuine choice to do otherwise.
    -public actions are more "fixed" in social reality, and less susceptible to change than private thoughts, so the person is more likely to change his/her thoughts
    -this effect is stronger if the action is also disavowed by one's reference group who give personal reasons for not going along. >> strong force to internalize choice as one's own.


    6) Add attribution theory: we tend to offer ourselves explanations for our actions. We may hold that an action was voluntary and internally caused, or that it was caused by an external force. In the former, but not the latter case, we then have a reason to repeat the behavior.

    7) A large incentive (reward or punishment) or other external force offers a non-internal explanation for behavior, and allows the person to deny personal responsibility for a counter-attitudinal act; he/she then will not change their privately held attitudes.

    8) When public compliance is induced with minimum apparent extrinsic justification (rewards / punishments), then the accompanying private changes in beliefs and values are seen by the individual as "genuine" and "inner-directed" and are more likely to endure.
     

  • Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press. (and other sources)

    • C. Systematic frameworks for intervention strategies

    Tragedy of the commons:

    Conditions conducive to successful community resource management:

    1. Resource is controllable locally

    a. Definable boundaries (controllability: land>water>air)
    b. Resources stay within boundaries (plants>animals>fish>ocean fish)
    c. Local management rules can be enforced
    d. Change in the resource can be adequately monitored
    2. Local resource dependence
    a. Perceptible threat of resource depletion
    b. Difficulty of finding substitutes for local resources
    c. Difficulty or expense of leaving area
    3. Presence of community
    a. Stable, usually small population
    b. "Thick" network of social interactions
    c. Shared norms ("social capital"), esp. norms for upholding agreements
    d. Resource users have sufficient knowledge of resources to devise fair and effective rules. (Note: a. facilitates b. and both a. & b. facilitate c. All 3 make it easy to share information and resolve conflicts informally).
    4. Appropriate rules and procedures
    a. Participatory selection and modification of rules
    b. Group controls monitoring and enforcement processes and personnel
    c. Rules emphasize exclusion of outsiders, restraint of insiders
    d. Congruence of rules with resource
    e. Rules contain built-in incentives for compliance
    f. Graduated, easy to administer penalties
  • McKay, B. & Acheson, J. (1987). The question of the commons.Tucson, AZ: Univ. of Arizona Press.
  • Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  • National Research Council, Committee on Human Dimensions of Global Change. (2002). Drama of the Commons. Washington, DC: GPO

    • D. Risk perception & behavior

    E. Motivational pitfalls when communicating about limits:
    http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~gmyers/esssa/motiv.pitfalls.html