THE ROUGH GUIDE TO PSYCHOLOGYPersuading people to go green
Although it seems that a lot of people recognize the human contri-
bution to climate change, and wish to make their behaviour more
environmentally friendly, many of them don’t. So what stops them?
The psychologists Gerald Gardner, Professor Emeritus at the University
of Michigan-Dearborn, and Paul Stern, Director of the Committee on
the Human Dimensions of Global Climate Change at the National
Research Council, think they know the answer. The problem, as they
see it, is a lack of clear information on ways in which individuals can
reduce their energy consumption.
According to Gardner and Stern, people end up doing things that
are highly visible and make them feel good – such as turning off lights
and turning down the thermostat – when actually these kinds of activi-
ties are relatively ineffective. In a 2008 article in Environment Magazine,
Gardner and Stern outlined some of the most effective actions people
can take to help limit the man-made contributions to climate change
(see http://tinyurl.com/5jd6f7).
In general, they felt that a few, costly actions were more effective
than engaging in numerous modifications or curtailments of existing
activities. For example, it’s better to invest in modern insulation and a
more efficient heating-system than it is to try to remember to turn the
thermostat down a notch each day. They also argued that this approach
is psychologically advantageous because “curtailment actions must
be repeated continuously over time to achieve their effect, whereas
efficiency-boosting actions, taken infrequently or only once, have
lasting effects with little need for continuing attention and effort”.
Psychological factors were also highlighted in a report published
by the British government in 2009 about how to encourage people to
move to a lower-carbon economy. One approach, favoured by psychol-
ogist Patrick Devine-Wright of Manchester University (a consultant on
the report) was for “smart metering”. This would make people’s energy
use more visible to them and enable it to be compared against typical
consumption-patterns. Research has shown that the installation of
such meters can reduce people’s energy use by up to ten percent. A
similar ploy has also been shown to increase household recycling.
Providing feedback to a person on how much their household has
recycled compared to the average for their street generally leads the
whole street to end up recycling more.expected, Obama’s camp could actually influence more people to turn
out to vote, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Another psychological effect politicians might benefit from is framing
- how to phrase things in such a way that it either increases the appeal
of your ideas and policies, or reduces the appeal of those of your oppo-