Psychology and the Natural World - Models of Behaviour

Introduction to Pro-Environmental Behaviour

• Instructor: K. Wyles, Associate Professor in Environmental Psychology, University of Plymouth.
• Contact: Kayleigh.Wyles@plymouth.ac.uk, @KJWyles
• Sessions: Tuesdays and Fridays, 14:00-15:00
• Session 3 Focus: Models of Behaviour

Overview of Sessions

• Week 1: Introduction + Connectedness to nature
  • Focus: Environmental Psychology, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral relationship with nature.
• Week 2: Environmental Restoration
  • Focus: Benefits of nature on mental health, wellbeing, and cognitive performance.
• Week 3: Models of behavior
  • Focus: Pro-environmental behaviour, importance, and factors influencing it.
• Week 4: Social norms
  • Focus: Drivers of behavior and the role of social norms.
• Week 5: Support session
  • Focus: Maximizing learning and exam preparation.
• Week 6: CANCELLED - Time for revision.

Content Overview

• Importance of pro-environmental behaviour.
• The problems and solutions related to environmental issues.
• Definitions of pro-environmental behaviour.
  • Intent vs. impact.
  • Measures and dimensions.
• Predictors of pro-environmental behaviour.
  • Overview of key theories.
  • Empirical evidence.
  • Pros and cons of each theory.

The Problem: Environmental Issues

• Examples of environmental issues:
  • Climate change.
  • Reduction in natural resources.
  • Over-population.
  • Over-consumption.
  • Pollution.
  • Over-fishing.
  • Erosion.
  • Litter.
  • Extreme weather.
  • Loss of biodiversity.
  • Ocean acidification.
  • Urban sprawl.
  • Genetic engineering.
• Main Cause: Unsustainable Use
  • Sustainable = keep (something) going over time or continuously (Oxford English Dictionary)

Current Status

• Developing Countries: Insufficient consumption to meet basic needs, but least contributors and most vulnerable.
• Developed Countries: Too many resources, too many emissions, and produce unacceptable social impacts in developing countries.
• Unequal Use:
  • People in upper-income countries require $5$ ha of land per capita. With about $6$ billion people, the total land area of Earth (about $13$ bln ha) is unequally distributed.
  • About $20$% of the world’s population consume $80$% of the Earth’s non-renewable resources.
  • One North-American uses the same amount of energy as $3$ Japanese, $38$ Indians, or $531$ Ethiopians.

Solution: Sustainable Lifestyles

• Definition (Mont, 2007):
  • Patterns of action and consumption used by people to affiliate and differentiate themselves from others, which meet basic needs, provide a better quality of life, minimize the use of natural resources and emissions of waste and pollutants over the lifecycle, and do not jeopardize the needs of future generations.
• Balancing Act: Balancing what we need/want with what nature can provide (an anthropocentric focus).
  • Anthropocentric = viewpoint that human beings are the central fact of the universe

Sustainability

• Consists of a clean and healthy environment, social-psychological well-being, and economic prosperity.
• United Nations (2015) outlines Sustainable Development Goals.
• Example: Marine Litter
  • Stages: Production → Use → Disposal → Raw Materials → Leakage to Ocean

Pro-Environmental Behaviour: Definitions

• Numerous Contexts: One issue involves numerous stages, individuals, contexts, behaviors and drivers/obstacles.
• Many Terms Used: Environmental citizenship, Pro-environmental behavior, Environmentally significant behavior, Environmentally friendly behavior, Environmentally sound behavior, Environmental behavior, Sustainable behaviour, Sustainable consumption, Green behaviour, and Conservation behavior.
• Key Definitions
  • Kollmuss and Agyeman (2002): ‘behavior that consciously seeks to minimize the negative impact of one’s actions on the natural and built world’.
    • More goal directed behaviour, associated more strongly with intentions, attitudes, values etc.
  • Steg and Vlek (2009): ‘behaviour that harms the environment as little as possible, or even benefits the environment.’
    • Does not have to be deliberative, can be associated with habits and less conscious processes.

Intent vs. Impact

• Scenario:
  • Fred doesn't care about the environment but lives more sustainably due to financial constraints.
  • David is environmentally conscious but has a larger environmental footprint due to his lifestyle.
• Highlights the difference between intent and actual environmental impact.

Measuring Pro-Environmental Behaviour (PEB)

• Behaviour vs. Impact: Measuring PEB can focus on behavior, impact, or both.
  • Focus on behavior good for understanding individual behavior, drivers, long-term change but not the same as impact.
  • Focus on impact good for policy advice but influenced by external factors.
• Methods of Measurement:
  • Observations of actual behavior and/or impact (e.g., meter usage, rubbish analysis).
  • Self-reporting own behavior (e.g., surveys using scales from disagree to agree or frequency scales).
    • Can report on past, current, or intended future behaviors.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Self-Report Measures

• Advantages:
  • Easy, convenient, cheap, and efficient for large data collection.
  • Can examine numerous behaviors and allow comparisons.
  • More holistic approach.
• Disadvantages:
  • Discrepancies between self-reports and actual impact.
  • Self-reports reflect perceptions of/beliefs about own behavior.
  • Lack of environmental knowledge/awareness.
  • Focus on insignificant behaviors.
  • Reported behavior not weighted.
  • Social desirability bias.

Are All Behaviours Equal?

• Some argue that "pro-environmental behaviour" is a single construct, others view it as an umbrella term with different dimensions.
• dimensions = subgroups / broken down into smaller aspects
• Dimensions:
  • Context (e.g., waste, transport, political).
  • Frequency of behavior (everyday vs. occasional).
  • Publicness (Activism vs. Public (non-activist) vs. Private behaviours (Stern, 2000)).
  • Level of commitment (Simple vs. Complex behaviours).

Spillover Effects

• Positive Spillover: one pro-environmental behaviour increases the likelihood of performing additional pro-environmental behaviours.
• Negative Spillover: one pro-environmental behaviour decreases the likelihood of performing additional pro-environmental behaviours.
• Sometimes exists, but not always. Argued to not be possible to truly test & demonstrate spillover

Importance of Clear Definitions

• Always be clear on how you are defining and operationalising (measuring) the key terms.

Theories of Behaviour

• Theory = a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something (Oxford English Dictionary)
• Conceptual framework = a structure of on mental concepts (i.e. how different concepts relate to one another)
• Model = a simplified description of a process to assist predictions (Oxford English Dictionary)

Importance of Theories

• They can help us understand behaviour (they do not demonstrate what makes people behave how they do)
• They begin to demonstrate the complexity of behaviour (not a simple knowledge deficit model)
• Ultimately, to design & implement effective behaviour change interventions
• Still finding the balance between simplicity (thus comprehensible) & accuracy / completeness
• Often take a universal approach (don’t differentiate between people)

Three Examples of Behavioural Theories

• Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB).
• Norm Activation Theory (NAT).
• Value-Belief Norm Model (VBN).

1. Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) by Ajzen (1991)

• Components:
  • Attitude: mental dispositions to evaluate an object with some degree of favour or disfavour
  • Subjective Norm: what is commonly (dis)approved
  • Perceived Behavioural Control: the perceived possibility to perform a behaviour
  • Intention: the motivation to perform a behaviour.
  • Behaviour

2. Norm Activation Theory (NAT) by Schwartz (1977)

*Personal norm = feelings of moral obligation to perform or refrain from specific actions also known as NAM – Norm Activation Model

3. Value-Belief Norm Model (VBN) by Stern et al. (1999)

• Values = desirable trans- situational goals varying in importance, which serve as guiding principles in the life of a person
• new environmental paradigm (worldview)
• Key further reading: Darnton (2008); Jackson (2005)

Comparing Theories

• Studies comparing TPB, NAT, and VBN:
  • Wall et al. (2007): NAT explained more variance than TPB in predicting commuting by car among university staff.
    • NAT explained $34.2$% variance vs TPB $23.3$%.
    • Both explained more than either separately.
    • PBC and PN only significant predictors.
  • Bamberg & Schmidt (2003): TPB and NAT concepts predicting travel choice.
    • TPB explained $45$% of behaviour, $60$% of intention (att $.32$, SN $.40$, PBC $.25$).
    • NAT explained $14$% of behaviour, $46$% of personal norm (AC $.15$, AR $.55$).
  • Kaiser et al. (2005): TPB and VBN concepts predicting multiple GEB scale behaviours (travel, diet, recycling, energy).
    • TPB intention explained $95$% of behaviour, $76$% of intention (att $.39$, SN $.14$, PBC $.49$).
    • VBN personal norm explained $64$% of behaviour, AR explained $30$% of PN $.54$, AC explained $46$% of AR $.68$, NEP explained $21$% of AC $.46$.

Further Reading & Resources

• Chapters 16 & 22 of Steg, L. E., Van Den Berg, A. E., & De Groot, J. I. (2018). Environmental psychology: An introduction. (2nd Ed) BPS Blackwell.
• Jackson (2005). Motivating Sustainable Consumption. A review of evidence on consumer behaviour and behavioural change. SDRN [nice clear overview of many theories]
• Darnton, A. (2008). Practical Guide: An overview of behaviour change models and their uses. London, Government Social Research [useful overview of many theories and provides positive & negative critique of the role of theories]
• Bleys, B., Defloor, B., Van Ootegem, L., & Verhofstadt, E. (2018). The environmental impact of individual behavior: Self-assessment versus the ecological footprint. Environment and Behavior, 50(2), 187-212. [good for comparing perceived and actual impact of behaviours]
• Gifford, R., & Nilsson, A. (2014). Personal and social factors that influence pro‐environmental concern and behaviour: A review. International Journal of Psychology, 49(3), 141-157. [useful overview of other influential factors]
• Klöckner, C. A. (2013). A comprehensive model of the psychology of environmental behaviour—A meta-analysis. Global Environmental Change, 23(5), 1028-1038. [key paper looking at the 3 main theories and examining the prominent concepts in predicting behaviour]
• Stern, P. C. (1992). Psychological dimensions of global environmental change. Annual review of psychology, 43(1), 269-302. [useful overview of key concepts – read this or Gifford & Nilsson]
• Varotto, A., & Spagnolli, A. (2017). Psychological strategies to promote household recycling. A systematic review with meta-analysis of validated field interventions. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 51, 168-188. [useful paper comparing different behaviour change techniques]
• Jonny and the Baptists – The end is Nigh