PRO-ENVIRONMENT

BEHAVIOR
 PRO-ENVIRONMENT BEHAVIOR

• Pro-environmental behaviors :“individual behaviors contributing

to environmental sustainability (such as limiting energy
consumption, avoiding waste, recycling, and environmental
activism)” (Mesmer-Magnus et al., 2012).
• These behaviors may be public (for example, taking mass transit,
participating in a rally for an environmental cause) or
• private (for example, composting, not using home air conditioning
on a hot day).
FOUR STEPS FOR PROMOTING PRO-ENVIRONMENT
BEHAVIOR CHANGE (STEG AND VLEK 2009)

• 1. choose a specific behavior to be changed that will improve the

quality of the environment.
• 2. examine the primary factors underlying this behavior.
• 3. design and apply an intervention to change the behavior so as
to reduce its environmental impact.
• 4. rigorously evaluate the effects of the intervention on the
behavior and also on the quality of environmental and human life.
 PRO-ENVIRONMENT BEHAVIOR

• Initial step: select a particular group for the intervention, as opposed to changing
the behavior of “everyone.”
• Second step: identify the main factors that underlie pro-environmental behavior (or
the lack of it)?
• It can be a complex mix of values, awareness of the problem, environmental
attitudes, a sense of control, moral and social norms, guilt, and attributions about self
and others (Bamberg & Möser, 2007).
• It involve the recognition that all behavior has multiple determinants; even if one or
two influences are investigated in a given study, we must be aware that some
influences that are not examined also influence the behavior.
Third step: Intervention can be used 2 ways
1. Antecedent Strategies
2. Consequences Strategies
1 Antecedent strategies- factors that precede the problem behavior (e.g.,
behavioral commitment, goal setting, information/ education, environmental
design)
Involves providing pro-environment information.
Educational strategies tend to result in greater awareness and knowledge levels,
but often do not lead to actual behavior change.
2 Consequence strategies- directed the consequences that follow the
problem behavior (e.g., feedback, rewards) (Steg & Vlek, 2009).
• Rewards often encourage energy conservation, but with short-lived
effects.
• Feedback can be useful, especially if it is given frequently
(Abrahamse, Steg, Vlek, & Rothengatter, 2005).
• Fourth Step: rigorously evaluate the effects of the intervention on the
behavior and also on the quality of environmental and human life.
INDUCING PRO-ENVIRONMENT
BEHAVIOR
 INDUCING PRO-ENVIRONMENT
BEHAVIOR

Intervention strategies directed at encouraging pro-

environment behavior:
1. Getting people to recycle
2. Getting people to drive less
3. Getting people to reduce household energy usage
 1. GETTING PEOPLE TO RECYCLE

• Nigbur & Uzzell, (2010) found attitudes, perceived control, self-

identity, and norms predicted the intention to recycle.
• Only prediction in itself does not increase recycling; rather an
intervention is needed.
• Schultz attempted to increase residents’ recycling behavior by making
norms about their own or others’ recycling behavior prominent to them.
• Highlighting existing discrepancies between the norm
 1. GETTING PEOPLE TO RECYCLE

• 480 households, the levels of recycling – 8 weeks.

• A week after the baseline, selected household
were informed that they should recycle as much as
possible.
• Each morning of the 4 weeks, household recycling
materials were collected and measured.
 4 CONDITIONS IN THE STUDY

1. The plea only condition were not contacted again.

2. The information condition, information about the recycling
process & materials.
3. The individual feedback condition feedback about their own
level of recycling for the previous week, for the current week,
and for the course of the study.
4. The group feedback condition Feedback about the level of
recycling in the entire neighborhood.
 SCHULTZ (1998) FEEDBACK
PROMOTING RECYCLING
Conditions During intervention After 4 week
intervention

The plea only No sig effect No sig effect

condition

The information No sig effect No sig effect

condition

The individual Sig increase in Sig increase in

feedback recycling behavior recycling behavior

The group feedback Sig increase in Sig increase in

recycling behavior recycling behavior
 2. GETTING PEOPLE TO DRIVE LESS

• Study designed to get people to drive less; online intervention in college

students (Graham, Koo, & Wilson, 2011).
• Conducted with the concern about the pollution caused by automobiles.
• Every 2nd day for 2 weeks, the participants reported the number of miles
they had avoided driving (e.g., instead of driving they took a bike,
walked, used public transportation).
• After each session, if participants reported they had avoided using their
cars, they received the following feedback depending on the condition:
 RATING ON USE OF CAR DURING TWO
WEEKS INTERVENTION
Conditions Motives Result
1. Pollution avoided condition (i.e., Induce Prosocial Sig (48 miles
pounds of carbon dioxide, carbon behavior, help the avoided)
monoxide, hydrocarbons, and environment
nitrogen oxide)

2. Financial gains condition (i.e., Save money Sig (49 miles

savings on gas and maintenance); avoided)

3. Both pollution avoided and Both Sig (85 miles

financial gains condition; and avoided)

4. No feedback condition - No sig (34

miles)
• Students who were in the four conditions avoided driving than the
students in the no-web control group.
• In addition, the students in the combined feedback condition reported
driving less than those in all of the other conditions.
• Keeping track of one’s driving, independent of the feedback received,
served as an effective intervention strategy.
• Simple act of record keeping alone is effective in reducing
undesirable behaviors (e.g., alcohol and drug usage, driving under the
influence).
III. GETTING PEOPLE TO REDUCE
HOUSEHOLD ENERGY USAGE.

• Household energy use, contribute to the increases in greenhouse

gas emissions.
• U.S. Department of Energy, 2009 estimated households energy
accounted for 21% of U.S. CO2 emissions. Therefore, effective
interventions aimed at lowering household energy is imp.
• Abrahamse, Steg, Vlek, and Rothengatter (2007 ) encourage
households to reduce their use of direct energy (gas, electricity, and
fuel) and indirect energy (that which is used to produce, transport,
and dispose of consumer goods).
• A combination of three intervention strategies was employed:
(a) a list of energy saving measures with potential savings tailored to each household,
(b) a goal setting request to reduce energy consumption by 5% over five months, and
(c)customized feedback about changes in energy use and amount of money saved.

The 5% goal was achieved. Households consumed 5.1% less

energy, whereas a control group had a slight increase in energy
consumption.
 ANOTHER EXAMPLE

• Environmental audits are another approach to home energy

conservation.
• Energy utility companies and governments have tried to provoke
conservation through programs in which a company representative
visits a household and examines its energy-wasting capacity.
• They point out problems, suggests repairs, offers an attractive grant
or loan for major refits, and suggests reputable contractors for
doing the needed work.
• Gonzales and colleagues (1988) improved the
15% success rate by training auditors to use social
influence strategy such as
• How to communicate more effectively,
• Techniques of persuasion,
• Focus on loss rather than gain,
• Making people involve while investigating
• Cognitive dissonance
• It produced a cooperation rate of approximately
60%, roughly four times the usual rate.
THE BUILD ENVIRONMENT: How physical design effect our
behavior?
 THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT

• Physical environment (such as lightning, noise, temp) have been

shown to influence behavior
• Studies behavioral effects of physical design
• Important concern of environmental psychologist:
“How to improve the physical environment”?
• It is done in 2 ways:
1. Social Design
2. Defensible Space
 Designs

Technical Formal Social

design design Design

Engineering Large Scale, high

Low scale, ,
aspects of cost, concern
human oriented
building with architecture
 1. SOCIAL DESIGN

• SD involve creating more user friendly buildings in

collaboration with those who will actually use the building
that can best serve their desires & requirements.
• e.g. office, school, residence, factory, retail store, prison
outdoor spaces, (streets and plazas).
• Social design are not always needed especially in
preindustrial tradition as buildings are constructed with the
architecture that well fits community and cultural norm.
• But in industrial societies social design needed as
communication among the principal players are
diminishing.
• Philip Jonhson said “the job of architect is to create
beautiful buildings”
• Today many designers focus more on aesthetic and
fashionable architect and rather than on habitability,
usability and need of the occupants.
 CASE EG OF BUILDING DESIGN
FAILURE
• The Pruitt–Igoe a large apartment complex project in 1954 was designed with the admirable intention of
replacing deteriorating inner-city housing. It contained 43 eleven-story buildings to house 12,000 people,
was praised in an architectural journal for having vandal-resistant features, individualistic design, and no
wasted space.
• The Pruitt–Igoe design saved space in part by having elevators stop only at every third floor, so that most
residents would walk up or down one flight of stairs to their apartments. Pruitt–Igoe cost much less per unit
than did architect even applied for a patent on the design. But problems appeared soon after Pruitt–Igoe
opened. The failure to carefully examine its design in relation to human social behavior contributed to high
rates of fear, vandalism, serious crime, and vacancy. A particular problem was crime in the stairwells that
residents were forced to use caused by the “innovative” elevator savings plan. The situation was so bad
that, after only 18 years, the city began to demolish the entire complex. In this example, insufficient
consideration of how the physical structure would influence social behavior led to the ultimate failure of the
project.
GOALS OF SOCIAL DESIGN
(STEELE, 1973):

1. Matching (most important goal)

2. Satisfy building users
3. Change behavior
4. Enhance the building users’ personal control
5. Facilitate social support
6. Employ “imageability”
 MATCHING

• Create physical settings that match the needs and activities of their occupants.
• Press: characteristics of environmental features that shape behavior (Murray, 1938). 2 forms :
Alpha press : actual reality assessed through objective inquiry.
Beta press : people’s interpretation of external reality.
• Similarly, there are alpha and beta forms of matching.
a) Alpha matching, or congruence, refers to how well the setting fits the person from an
objective point of view.
b) Beta matching, or habitability, is “environmental quality as perceived by occupants of
buildings or facilities” (Preiser & Taylor, 1983).
For example, there is a good (objective) height for kitchen counters for persons of different
heights.
• Eg Gifford and Martin,1991-renovation of building that
served people with Multiple sclerosis
• The social designer interviewed 80 patient with MS, their
family, caregiver and staff
• Resulted in new design that reduced their pain, more
convenient and comfortable environment
 SATISFY BUILDING USERS

• Occupant satisfaction is important because:

• occupants spend significant parts of their lives working, residing,
or relaxing in the setting.
• Social design began with attempts to provide the benefits of design
to the unfortunate (e.g., mental patients, physically handicap,
visually challenge) and to the poor (Sommer, 1983)
 CHANGE BEHAVIOR

• Many projects implicitly or explicitly embody people’s

hope that occupant behavior will change for the better.
• Such changes might include
• increasing office worker productivity,
• enhancing social ties among institutionalized elderly people,
• reducing aggression in a prison, or
• increasing communication among managers in an administrative office.
• Increasing students participation in classroom
• Eg. Sommer and Oslen (1980) redesign 30
seat college classroom.
• Semi-circular, cushion covered benched
seating, adjustable lighting etc
• Results- more participation in discussion
 PERSONAL CONTROL
• Stress is often related to lack of personal control over physical and
social input.
• Noise, unwanted social contact, congestion, and a lack of places of
refuge lead to the sense that one has lost control or security.
• The more building users are able to alter the setting to make it suit their
needs, the less stressful that setting will be.
• Two other common examples of low-control settings are crowding and
traffic jams.
• Eg Library next to music room, few stairs or elevators for big buildings
 SOCIAL SUPPORT
• Social support is a process in which a person receives caring, kind words,
and helpfulness from those around him or her. Many social problems
would be eased if more and better social support were available.
• Facilitate designs that encourage cooperation, assistance, and support for
building occupants
• Sociopetal arrangement-encourage social interaction
• Sociofugal arrangement-discourage social interaction
• Eg lounge in office, recreational room
 IMAGEABILITY

• Buildings should be imageable (i.e., clearly

understandable or legible) to the people who use them
(Hunt, 1985).
• When you walk into a building, you should immediately
be able to find your way around.
• help occupants, and (especially) visitors and newcomers,
to find their way around without getting lost or confused.
 OUTDOOR SPACES

• Social design is also applied in outdoor spaces such as plazas,

park, streets
• Brower(1988) suggested to
• Keep residential street alive by encouraging people to walk,
stroll, play
• Legitimate use of public space (no area should be left
unowned)
 2. DEFENSIBLE SPACE

• Crime is the outcome of interactions between a motivated

offender and a favorable target.
• Crime can be reduced by changing the situation
• Defensible space focuses on creating certain design that will
increase residence’s sense of security and reduce crime
• It is done by creating a physical expression of social fabric
which defends itself (Newma,1972)
• Way of fighting crime through careful arrangement of the
physical aspects of communities, retail buildings, and
residences.
• Designing building or community to encourage or discourage
crime, robbers, and vandals.
• What could those design factors?
• How could social psychology be a part of this kind of research?
• Why several designs are related with increase robbery?
• Defensible space theory, (Jacobs, 1961; Newman, 1972)
proposes that certain design features will increase residents’
sense of security and decrease crime in the territory.
• -real (fences, locks )or symbolic barriers (extra decoration and
fancy garden)
• - Surveillance (territory owners to observe suspicious activity)
• Many researches have supported this theory
• More crime in areas that offer fewer surveillance.
• Reduction in robberies (30-84%) after changes made
accordance to defensible space theory.
•Applying defensible space
at Residence
MCDONALD AND GIFFORD(1989) STUDIED CONVICTED
BURGLARS, AND ASKED THEM TO EXAMINE 50 HOUSES AND
RATE THEIR LIKELIHOOD OF BEING ROBBED
Defensible space
theory suggest
easily surveillable houses,
actual barriers(fences,
locks) and
symbolic barriers(extra
decoration and fancy
garden)- less likely to be
robbed
Real Convicts
Surveillability-reduces
burglary (Robinson &
Robinson, 1997)
actual barriers–
challenging but they could
overcome
symbolic barriers more
vulnerable.
WHY???
INTERESTING FINDINGS!!!

• Locks and bars are not serious issue for

them but they worry about neighbors seeing
them.
• Taller buildings is associated with more
crimes (Rand, 1984).
•Applying defensible
space at Communities
 COMMUNITIES

• according to one study

• Residents do feel safer in gated communities,
• but actual crime rates were no lower, and,
• interestingly, sense of community was lower than in non
gated communities (Wilson-Doenges, 2000).
• The actions of both the resident and the criminal are affected by defensible
space features.
• Certain streets in St. Louis have defensible space features, including gateway-
like entrances, alterations that restrict traffic flow (through narrowing roads or
using speed bumps), and signs that discourage traffic (Newman, 1980).
• Residents are more often seen outside their homes, walking and working in
their yards.
• Such behaviors is perceived by intruder as guarding the neighborhood or
naturally occurring surveillance thus discouraging antisocial activity.
SPEED BUMPS AND BARRIERS HAS HELPED TO PROMOTE
FEELINGS OF SAFETY AMONG RESIDENTS OF
NEIGHBORHOODS IN BALTIMORE.
• Dayton, Ohio, neighborhood with a high crime rate—incorporated
some defensible space changes (Cose, 1994).
• Many entrances to the neighborhood were closed, speed bumps
were installed, gates with the neighborhood logo were installed, and
the community was divided into five mini neighborhoods with
physical barriers.
• Two years later, traffic was down 67%, violent crime was down
50%, and total crime was down 26%.
Defensible space may not work because of following
factors
1. non cohesive neighborhood,
2. less experienced criminal might not pay attention to
environment
VAN DER VOORDT & VAN WEGEN (1990) THIS CHECKLIST
CONSISTS OF SIX MAIN ELEMENTS THAT DISCOURAGE
CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR:

1. The potential visibility of public areas (lines of sight)

2. The actual presence of residents
3. Social involvement (residents caring enough to maintain
buildings and act against criminals)
4. Poor access and escape routes for criminals
5. Attractive surroundings that evoke care in residents
6. Structural safeguards or not (e.g., locks, presence of easily
vandalized walls, phone booths)