Environmental: Topic Three Flashcards
What is topic 3?
Recycling and other conservation behaviours
What did Lord look into?
Motivating recycling behaviour: a quasi experimental investigation of message and source strategies
What was Lord’s aim?
To investigate the effectiveness of two differently framed message approaches and 3 source strategies in enhancing people’s beliefs and attitudes towards recycling
Describe the sample used in Lord’s study
140 households in North East metropolitan community with kerbside recycling programme (57%F, 43%M age range 19-65)
How was Lord’s study matched?
As closely to the community’s demographic diversity (albeit more in the suburbs for safety reasons)
What did students do on kerbside collection day week 1?
They observed and recorded the contents of each households recycling bin (number of items and category of item)
What did students do the following day?
They left stimulus message at the front door (20 didn’t receive this as a control condition)
What did positively framed messages focus on?
The benefits of recycling as well as satisfaction arising from participation programmes
What did negatively framed messages focus on?
They described the risks from failing to recycle
What was the ad like?
The appearance as from a company claiming to be a distributor of eco-friendly products
What was the publicity news article?
Was described as recently appearing in a local news publication
What was the personal influence?
A letter by student assistant and addressed personal acquaintance
The following week what did the students do?
Repeated the check of the recycling bins and sent a questionnaire to each households
What did the questionnaire address?
Beliefs (by a series of statements with likert scales), attitudes (by 4 semantic differentials) and demographic info (gender, age etc)
What did the experimental conditions show about change in behaviour?
A significant increase from week one to week two in how much was recycled
What did positively framed messages result in?
More positive and favourable attitudes
Advertisements resulted in what?
They showed to engender beliefs in positive claims
Personal influence (specifically what kind) increased what?
Negatively framed messages increased behaviours especially
When was the Yale model of persuasion developed?
1950 by Hovland at Yale
What is the model used as?
A basis to change attitudes
Describe the importance of the source
Better if it is credible and trustworthy
Describe the importance of the message
Two sided arguments work best for people who are well educated and one sided works best for people who are less well educated
Describe the importance of the recipient
For people with strong views, smaller attitude changes should be attempted
Describe the importance of the situation
Informal discussion works best
What are the 3 stages of effective communication
1) Attention - has to be noticed
2) Comprehension - has to be understood
3) Acceptance - must be believable
What is operant conditioning and how is it effective for changing attitudes?
Learning through rewards and punishments, most effective using positive reinforcement through rewards
What is social learning theory and how should we use it to influence positive recycling behaviours?
Learning through imitation and role models and therefore we should provide positive role models
What did Reich and Robertson do?
They handed out 3 forms of leaflets at a swimming pool
What were the 3 prompts in R and R?
‘Help keep your pool clean’, ‘don’t litter’ and ‘don’t you dare litter’
Which message was most effective in R and R?
‘Help keep your pool clean’
Which message was least effective in R and R?
‘Don’t you dare litter’
Why was ‘don’t you dare litter’ the least effective in R and R?
Because people don’t like to be told what to do and so react against restrictions on their behaviour
What did Cialdini look into?
Social norms
Who did Cialdini work with?
Large hotels to encourage guests to reuse towels
How many guests were used in Cialdini’s sample?
260 - 5 conditions
What were the 5 different conditions (Cialdini)?
‘Help your hotel save energy’,
‘Partner with us to help save the environment’
‘Help save the environment’
‘Help us save resources for future generations’
‘Join your fellow citizens in helping to save the environment’
Which messages were most effective in Cialdini’s study?
‘Join your fellow citizens in helping to save the environment’ was most successful - 41% reused their towels
‘Help us save resources for future generations’ was 2nd most successful - 31% reused their towels
Which message was least effective in Cialdini’s study?
‘Help your hotel save energy’ - 20% reused their towels
