No abstract

Recent research in the US shows the potential of providing information about minority norms that are increasing on positively influencing interest and engagement in desired behaviours. Although these are promising findings, there is little published research replicating or testing this effect outside the US. The study reported here is a direct replication of Sparkman and Walton’s (2017) research. We explored the effects of different kinds of normative information, particularly information about increasing (referred to as ‘dynamic’ or ‘trending’) minority norms, on interest in reducing meat consumption, attitudes toward reducing meat consumption, intentions to reduce meat consumption, and expectations to do so. Following pilot work (n = 197), we used a double-blind online study with three conditions: dynamic norm (n = 276), static norm (n = 284), and no norm (n = 286). The sample consisted of British people, with ages ranging from 18 to 79 (Mage = 37.21, SDage = 13.58; 56.38% female). There was no effect of dynamic norm information on any outcomes, including predictions about future meat consumption norms. Exploratory analyses suggest that political position and gender were associated with meat consumption outcomes. The findings are discussed in relation to conditions under which dynamic normative information may be successful in influencing motivation to engage in desired behaviours, and to possible improvements in research design.

Recently, there has been a growing emphasis on embedding open and reproducible approaches into research. One essential step in accomplishing this larger goal is to embed such practices into undergraduate and postgraduate research training. However, this often requires substantial time and resources to implement. Also, while many pedagogical resources are regularly developed for this purpose, they are not often openly and actively shared with the wider community. The creation and public sharing of open educational resources is useful for educators who wish to embed open scholarship and reproducibility into their teaching and learning. In this article, we describe and openly share a bank of teaching resources and lesson plans on the broad topics of open scholarship, open science, replication, and reproducibility that can be integrated into taught courses, to support educators and instructors. These resources were created as part of the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science (SIPS) hackathon at the 2021 Annual Conference, and we detail this collaborative process in the article. By sharing these open pedagogical resources, we aim to reduce the labour required to develop and implement open scholarship content to further the open scholarship and open educational materials movement.

Recently, there has been a growing emphasis on embedding open and reproducible approaches into research. One essential step in accomplishing this larger goal is to embed such practices into undergraduate and postgraduate research training. However, this often requires substantial time and resources to implement. Also, while many pedagogical resources are regularly developed for this purpose, they are not often openly and actively shared with the wider community. The creation and public sharing of open educational resources is useful for educators who wish to embed open scholarship and reproducibility into their teaching and learning. In this article, we describe and openly share a bank of teaching resources and lesson plans on the broad topics of open scholarship, open science, replication, and reproducibility that can be integrated into taught courses, to support educators and instructors. These resources were created as part of the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science (SIPS) hackathon at the 2021 Annual Conference, and we detail this collaborative process in the article. By sharing these open pedagogical resources, we aim to reduce the labour required to develop and implement open scholarship content to further the open scholarship and open educational materials movement.

While decreasing their meat consumption is one of the most impactful behaviours an individual may carry out to reduce their carbon emissions, it is still a minority behaviour in many parts of the world. Research suggests that communicating information about changing ‘dynamic’ norms may be a useful tool for changing attitudes and behaviours in the direction of those currently held by the minority. This study utilizes a 2 x 2 mixed design (Norm Type [dynamic/static] x Visual Cue [present/absent], and a no-task control), and a follow-up assessment after one week to investigate the effect of making dynamic norms salient on various meat consumption outcomes: attitudes towards meat consumption, interest in reducing one’s own meat consumption, intentions to reduce one’s own meat consumption, and self-reported meat consumption. We used an online sample of British participants (N = 1294), ranging in ages 18–77 (Mage = 39.97, SDage = 13.71; 55.8% female). We hypothesized that: (a) dynamic norms will positively influence meat consumption outcomes, (b) visual cues will accentuate the difference between norm conditions, (c) using a visual cue will enhance the effect of dynamic norms, and (d) any effects of dynamic norms will endure over a period of one week. We found no positive effect of dynamic norms (vs. static norms) on any outcome at time 1, and no positive effect on changes in outcomes from time 1 to time 2. However, we found a positive interaction of norm type and visual cue at time 1 (although not from time 1 to time 2): the addition of a visual cue to dynamic norm messages enhanced the positive effect of the message at time 1 (but did not enhance the changes occurring from time 1 to time 2). Analyses for changes in self-reported meat consumption did not reach our evidential threshold. We discuss the practical and theoretical implications of these findings.