Nudging pro‐environmental behavior: evidence and opportunities

Abstract

Human behavior is responsible for many of our greatest environmental challenges. The accumulated effects of many individual and household decisions have major negative impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem health. Human behavioral science blends psychology and economics to understand how people respond to the context in which they make decisions (eg who presents the information and how it is framed). Behavioral insights have informed new strategies to improve personal health and financial choices. However, less is known about whether and how these insights can encourage choices that are better for the environment. We review 160 experimental interventions that attempt to alter behavior in six domains in which decisions have major environmental impacts: family planning, land management, meat consumption, transportation choices, waste production, and water use. The evidence suggests that social influence and simple adjustments to decision settings can influence pro‐environmental decisions. We identify four important gaps in the evidence that provide opportunities for future research. To address these gaps, we encourage collaborations between researchers and practitioners that look at the effects of embedding tests of behavior‐change interventions within environmental programs.

Reducing meat consumption: Identifying group-specific inhibitors using latent profile analysis

“…Previous researchers have evaluated the effectiveness of intervention strategies to promote PEB (e.g., Campbell-Arvai et al, 2014;Loy et al, 2016), and reviews of such work conclude that choice architecture and social comparison messages are most promising for changing PEB (Byerli et al, 2018;Nisa, Bélanger, Schumpe, & Faller, 2019). However, most of these interventions use one-size-fits-all approaches, other than a few interventions tailored to the stage of change (Bamberg, 2013a;Klöckner & Osftad, 2017) or to home energy audits (Abrahamse, Steg, Vlek, & Rothengatter, 2007).…”

“…Many researchers have focused their efforts on evaluating the effectiveness of interventions to promote PEB (Byerli et al, 2018;Nisa, Bélanger, Schumpe, & Faller, 2019;Osbaldiston & Schott, 2012). Their reviews generally conclude that while the success of interventions strategies likely varies between types of PEB (e.g., transportation choices or water use; Byerli et al, 2018;Osbaldiston & Schott, 2012), choice architecture (i.e., nudging) and social comparison messages have the largest average effect sizes. The authors recommend that future research focus on high-impact PEB, on using experimental approaches to evaluate their effectiveness, and include follow-up measures to evaluate any lasting effects.…”

Marketing insects: can exploiting a commercial framework help promote undervalued insect species?

“…Despite being intuitively seductive, putting an economic value on nature is controversial (e.g. Bolderdijk et al, 2013;Evans et al, 2013;Byerly et al, 2018). Nonetheless, it has been adopted to a greater-or-lesser extent by both the public and scientific communities through discussions on the natural capital of a species or habitat, or the ecosystem services they offer (defined as how a species/habitat contributes to the quality of human life and wellbeing) (Costanza et al, 1997;Egoh et al, 2007).…”

Social influence and forest habitat conservation: Experimental evidence from Vermont's maple producers

“…Often, these strategies employ social influence-leveraging people's sensitivity to the opinions and behavior of others (Abrahamse & Steg, 2013). These "behavioral interventions" have produced gains in a range of pro-social and pro-environmental individual behaviors, yet there have been few applications to decisions about land and natural resource management (Byerly et al, 2018). Behavioral strategies are often low-cost and preserve freedom of choice, making them well suited for stretched conservation budgets and property owners possibly resistant to mandates (Ferraro, Messer, & Wu, 2017).…”