Charges for plastic bags: Motivational and behavioral effects

Jakovcevic, Adriana; Steg, Linda; Mazzeo, Nadia; Caballero, Romina; Franco, Paul; Putrino, Natalia; Favara, Jésica Verónica

doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2014.09.004

Cited by 131 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…As recognized in the review work by Klöckner (2013), understanding change in an individual's habits (behaviors that have become automatized through repetition), is also amongst the best direct predictors of behavior change ( Table 1). Examples of methods that could be applied, include observing individual's behavior in supermarkets in relation to purchasing choice, as applied for plastic bag use by Jakovcevic et al (2014), or frequency of undertaking a behavior such as littering in parks (Schultz et al, 2013). For participants of an ocean literacy initiative with an associated app or social media site, frequency of visits to the social media site or of accessing information resources on an app within smart phones can be undertaken (Ernsting et al, 2017;Dempsey et al, 2018).…”

Section: Improving Experimental Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Change of Mind: Applying Social and Behavioral Research Methods to the Assessment of the Effectiveness of Ocean Literacy Initiatives

et al. 2019

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Assessment of environmental literacy and ocean literacy focus on increasing knowledge and awareness. The goal of ocean literacy initiatives is ultimately to enable behavior change (whereby citizens take direct and sustainable action) to achieve sustainable solutions to marine environment issues. The application of social and behavioral research methods provides powerful tools for assessing if ocean literacy initiatives are effective at increasing participant's knowledge and awareness of an issue, its causes and consequences and behaviors or actions required to enable sustainable solutions. Social and behavioral research methods also provide a means of assessing changes in attitude, a key predictor of behavior change, and ultimately a means of assessing changes in a participants intended and reported behaviors. We present a framework to integrate social and behavioral research methods within assessment of the effectiveness of ocean literacy initiatives. The before and after assessment we undertake develops existing environmental literacy and ocean literacy assessment approaches by integrating social and behavioral research methods to assess key predictors of behavior change. We structured the assessment methodology within a Theory of Change logic model, to provide a protocol for systematic evaluation of ocean literacy initiatives and tools. Specifically those aimed at promoting specific behavior change objectives for pre-identified actors. Assessment of educational training courses for professionals entering the shipping industry (targeting behaviors to reduce the spread of invasive species), and educational workshops for school students (aged 11-15 and 16-18), on problems related to marine litter and microplastics and potential solutions were assessed using the framework. Through before and after surveys, an increase in awareness, knowledge and an increase in attitudes supporting action to reduce impacts on the marine environment were reported by participants, after interaction with sets of tools developed by the Horizon 2020 Ocean Literacy project ResponSEAble. Results supported the importance of targeting specific audiences with tailored ocean literacy tools and the importance of informing actors of issues and solutions within the context of wider ocean literacy principles.

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Section: Improving Experimental Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Change of Mind: Applying Social and Behavioral Research Methods to the Assessment of the Effectiveness of Ocean Literacy Initiatives

et al. 2019

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“…Sampling and observation protocols need to be carefully designed and recorded and inter-observer reliability should be established to ensure data quality 23 . For example, Jacovcevich et al 24 observed consumer behaviour in several Argentinian supermarkets before and after plastic bag charges were introduced. As expected, consumer use of reusable bags increased and kept increasing for several months after the charge was introduced.…”

Section: Measuring People's Perceptions and Behaviours: Quantitative mentioning

confidence: 99%

The human dimension: how social and behavioural research methods can help address microplastics in the environment

Pahl

Wyles

2017

Anal. Methods

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The present paper illustrates the breadth of research methods in the Social and Behavioural Sciences and how these may be applied to the issue of environmental microplastics. Microplastics are a human-caused problem and we need to understand the human dimension in order to address it. Nine key points are emphasised in this paper and follow from the key observation that humans, through their perceptions, decisions and actions, are pivotal to the issue of primary and secondary microplastics in the environment: 1) Human perception and behaviour can be subject to systematic and rigorous scientific study, using theory-based hypothesis testing, measurement and statistical analysis; 2) Qualitative methods can explore new areas of research and provide novel, in-depth insights; 3) Best practice and recommendations exist for measuring social data; 4) Quantitative cross-sectional approaches can test how important social factors are for key outcomes (e.g., the role of perceived risk, values, social norms for behaviour); 5) Experimental quantitative approaches can compare randomised groups and study cause-effect relations; 6) Certain limitations and challenges are unique to research with people; 7) Communications and interventions (e.g., change campaigns, new regulation, education programmes) should be developed based on scientific insights into human thought and behaviour and then evaluated systematically; 8) Social researchers should work towards developing standardised tools and protocols; and 9) Social research on microplastics and its determinants specifically is in its infancy and a number of important research questions remain to be addressed.

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“…Studies which measure self-reported behaviour using questionnaires may be affected by bias (Van de Mortel et al, 2008) or poor memory (Jakovcevic et al, 2014), and may not truly represent behaviour occurring in the real world (Kormos & Gifford, 2014). Kormos and Gifford (2014) found that in the association between self-reported pro-environmental behaviour and objective behavioural measurements, the majority of the variance was unexplained.…”

Section: )mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite testing all available variables, we made predictions on the expected predictors of frequent plastic bag purchasing based on two different components 1) the characteristics of people who intend to not consume plastic bags (Jakovcevic et al, 2014;Poortinga et al, 2016); and 2) the characteristics influencing people's ability to convert intentions to behaviour (Bamberg & Möser, 2007;Hines et al, 1987).…”

Section: Predictionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychological and Demographic Predictors of Plastic Bag Consumption in Transaction Data

Lavelle-Hill¹,

Smith²,

Bibby³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Despite the success of plastic bag charges in the UK, there are still around a billion single-use plastic bags bought each year in England alone, and the government have made plans to increase the levy from 5 to 10 pence. Previous research has identified motivations for bringing personal bags to the supermarket, but little is known about the individuals who are continuing to frequently purchase single-use plastic bags after the levy. In this study, we harnessed over a million loyalty card transaction records from a high-street health and beauty retailer linked to 12,968 questionnaire responses measuring demographics, shopping motivations, and individual differences. We utilised an exploratory machine learning approach to expose the demographic and psychological predictors of frequent plastic bag consumption. In the transaction data we identified 2,326 frequent single-use plastic bag buyers, which we matched randomly to infrequent buyers to create the balanced sub-sample we used for modelling (N=4,652). Frequent bag buyers spent more money in store, were younger, more likely to be male, less frugal, open to new experiences, and displeased with their appearance compared with infrequent bag buyers. Statistical regional differences also occurred. Interestingly, environmental concerns did not predict plastic bag consumption, highlighting the disconnect between predicting pro-environmental attitudes and a specific ecological behaviour measured objectively in the real world.

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Charges for plastic bags: Motivational and behavioral effects

Cited by 131 publications

References 28 publications

A Change of Mind: Applying Social and Behavioral Research Methods to the Assessment of the Effectiveness of Ocean Literacy Initiatives

A Change of Mind: Applying Social and Behavioral Research Methods to the Assessment of the Effectiveness of Ocean Literacy Initiatives

The human dimension: how social and behavioural research methods can help address microplastics in the environment

Psychological and Demographic Predictors of Plastic Bag Consumption in Transaction Data

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