Copyright © 2017 by Sherwin Balbuena doi: 10.13140/RG.2.2.32959.

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Socio-Natural Balance Framework: Towards an Ecologically

Responsive Decision-Making and Persuasion
Sherwin E. Balbuena
Dr. Emilio B. Espinosa, Sr. Memorial State College of Agriculture and Technology
Masbate, Philippines
<balbuenasherwine@debesmscat.edu.ph>

This paper presents my reflection on the issue of the difficulty in persuading

individuals or organizations to participate in environmental protection
advocacies. The failure of political coercion and scientific information
communication as persuasion strategies is explained in the psychological sense.
An alternative framework of socio-natural balance towards an ecologically
responsive decision and social action that can be used in persuasion is being
proposed.

W
hy does the environment continue to suffer the degradation (e.g., the death of Australian
Great Barrier Reef, pollution of Pasig River) brought about by economic-technological
advances and increasing population? Is it a problem so difficult to solve that even the best
political and scientific blueprints for persuading a sizeable number of individuals and organizations to
take part in environmental protection or preservation advocacies were to no avail? Can social psychology
handle this?

In the community where I grew up in Masbate, I witnessed how people inflicted so much pain to
Mother Nature. Disposal of garbage in rivers and seashores, kaingin (slash-and-burn) system of farming,
burning of cogonal grasslands during dry season, poisoning of the creeks, to name a few. I felt guilty for
these ‘crimes’ against the environment because I used to be an ignorant participant, doing things that were
‘acceptable’ to the uninformed community where I belonged. Later through reading relevant information
about the scientific principles that govern the biological and physical environments did I realize that I was
responsible, and I could feel—although not physically, but empathetically— the pain that She endures.
(What I mean by ignorance here is the absence of mental framework of morals, of science, and of the
inextricably intertwined roles of society and nature. Although the social perception that whatever our
neighbours were doing were acceptable, its meaning was made within a limited social context and
therefore invalid with respect to a wider societal setting (as may be explained by symbolic interactionism
theory (Mead, 1899)).

Despite a number of Philippine Laws promulgated (e.g., RA 9003 a.k.a. Ecological Solid Waste
Management Act of 2000, RA 8749 a.k.a. Philippine Clean Air Act of 1999, RA 3931 a.k.a. National

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Water and Air Pollution Control Commission Act, etc.) to promote environmental protection, these laws
still remain good in paper but not in actual implementation. In fact, the Philippines has the best laws on
climate change adaptation and on environment (Ubac, 2012). Despite these laudable political initiatives to
formulate laws that penalize (punish) individuals and organizations for their ecological crimes, every now
and then we would hear news about our degrading environment or see in our communities some simple-
to-grave violations of these laws. So what is the problem with persuasion using politics? Partly, it is a
matter of political leniency that promotes an environment of disobedience. That is the danger of
overjustification because the presence of a strong constraint (punishment) led a person/organization to
conclude that he/she/it is performing the behaviour solely to avoid punishment, which shifts the
motivation from being intrinsic to being extrinsic (Aronson, Akert, & Wilson, 2006). How do we develop
a lasting, intrinsic positive attitude towards the environment?

In this modern era, the media and the Internet provide us with ample knowledge about the science
behind the environment—how it works to maintain balance and how it is destroyed by natural phenomena
and man-made activities. We have so much information that we derive from school curricula with
environmental integrations, environmental scientists and practitioners training, and regular seminars about
environment. But where did our knowledge of environment go? Did it find its place in the continued
advocacy for environmental preservation? How many of our trained students, experts, and participants
really developed positive attitude towards the environment? You would agree that only a few did. So
what is the problem with persuading through scientific information dissemination? Perhaps, it is due to
ineffective communication. Or it may be due to the economic dilemma that people and organizations are
facing at present—which is more important, environmental protection or economic progress?

The issues I am emphasizing here are the types of persuasion that fail to work in environmental
activism—political and communicative. Political persuasion elicits only the sense of compliance and/or
conformity (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004) on the part of individuals and organizations. On the other hand,
scientific information dissemination activates our natural feeling of discomfort when the facts are in
contrary with our beliefs and practices. The former portrays an authoritative figure—the government—
with which the individual/organization was theorized to be seeking affiliation and approval (Blass, 1991).
In the absence of an approving authority, motivation to comply diminishes. The latter provides cognitions
of what the future holds for the next generations at some given scenarios based on the current trends of
environmental conditions and of what people can do to save humanity from imminent danger associated
with ecological imbalance. Many of us would believe what science says about the future of the
environment—as if scientists were today’s prophets—despite our lack of full knowledge about the
character of the source, be it an expert or an entity, because we rely on our own social cognition (Franzoi,

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2000). These cognitions under cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1962) can be categorized into two
kinds: consonant (i.e., “scientists use careful investigations”) and dissonant (i.e., “only God knows what
the future holds”) cognitions, with respect to a particular belief (i.e., “scientists are dependable people”).
However, some of us would believe with hesitation scientific information as the theory of social judgment
(Sherif, Kelly, Rodgers, Sarup, & Tittler, 1973) posits that after we receive messages from others, we tend
to sort them out—subconsciously—and accept only those consistent with our present point of view. If the
persuasive message or information is not communicated effectively, changing the attitude of the receiver
will more likely result to failure.

To address this issue, I am proposing a new framework of balanced decision-making that

considers four interactions involving an individual or organization—personal, social, natural and
supernatural. The first two interactions are social, while the other two are non-social. This framework is
aimed at providing a mental structure within which all cognitions must be consonant with each other
before arriving at a decision or doing social action, and this includes the natural environment as a one
consideration in decision-making. This is similar to the three-element Balance Theory proposed by Heider
(1958), but it has four elements of bipolar directionalities. The two directionalities are represented by the
two perpendicular axes—social and natural (the two human worlds according to Kuppuswamy (1964))—
and the four elements are the interactions mentioned above. The framework is illustrated in Figure1
below. Here is how it is applied. Before a decision is made, the individual or organization must first
provide based on honest and objective assessments an affirmative answer to each of the following
questions: 1) Does this decision develop myself or our own organization? 2) Is it beneficial to other
persons or other non-competitive organizations? 3) Is it in consonance with the primitive belief (Bem,
1970) or God’s law? 4) Does it preserve or protect the environment? Any inconsistent or unfavourable
answer would result to an indecision because there must be consonance among these elements. For
example, planting trees is a good physical exercise; the future generations will benefit from the trees you
plant; being stewards of the environment is biblical; and it preserves the environment. So it is a balanced
ecologically responsive decision to participate in tree planting. Another example is it is safe to use
genetically modified organism (GMO) products, good for you and good for me and for the growing
population (according to empirical research), but it is against the primitive belief and also destructive to
the environment (particularly to the organisms). Therefore, consuming GMO products is an ecologically
irresponsive social action, and no decision must be made yet.

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 Super-
natural? Balanced Decision/
All yes.
Ecologically Responsive
Social Action

Intra- Individual/ Inter-

personal? Organization personal?

At least one no. Indecision

Natural?

Fig. 1. The proposed socio-natural balance framework

In practice, it may not always be easy to find exact assessment criteria for giving an answer to
each of the four questions above, making it improbable for the individual or organization to arrive at a
balanced decision. So an ‘approximately balanced’ decision may be accepted. To arrive at this
approximation, assessment results must be within some tolerable levels or ranges of the socio-natural
parameter values. (These assessment tools and ranges, however, have not yet been created nor established
and are potential areas for research in the fields of statistics and other related fields.) If still no
approximate decision can be made within this framework, the ultimate option is to change the individual’s
attitude or organization’s plans and redirect them parallel to what is required by the framework.

In social influence and persuasion, this framework can be used by authorities and organizations in
the form of a self-reflection strategy, a policy, or a system process. It is a metacognitive strategy that
helps a person to think about his own thoughts and actions, which eventually leads him/her to practice
self-regulation (Bandura, 1991). The motivational effect is intrinsic rather than extrinsic (Ryan & Deci,
2000). Furthermore, by giving equal attention to the four interactions, or simply the bipolar socio-natural
directionalities, we would subconsciously avoid developing a partial attitude towards one or few of the
interactions. By promoting and constantly employing this framework in individual or organizational
decision-making, the task will become easy and automatic in the long run. As applied in a non-specialized
educational organization, for example, by consistently ensuring equal amount of focus on content areas
for self-development, interpersonal relationship, scientific and environmental attitudes, and spiritual and
cultural appreciation, a balanced curriculum is created, thereby producing students who are well-rounded
and ecologically responsive.

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 Conclusion

The issue of the difficulty in persuading people and organizations to partake in environmental
preservation initiatives is perchance due to coercive or lenient politics, ineffective communication of
scientific facts, or some economic dilemma. The people with whom I committed ecological crimes would
have been innocent if they were aware of not only political and scientific but also socio-cultural
dimensions of society that should have guided their decision-making and actions. This led me to the
proposition of the two-dimensional framework of socio-natural constructs which takes into account four
fundamental interactions in society. It seems to me that a better strategy to encourage environmental
activism is not through political compulsion nor scientific indoctrination but by psychological mind-
setting of individuals or organizations within a framework which promotes balanced attention to and
consistency among the fundamental societal elements.

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