Stop Talking Start Asking and Helping

Doug McKenzie Mohr, Ph.D. in Environmental Psychology has been working to foster community based sustainable behavior. He has found that to be successful it must draw on social psychology. Social psychologists have learned that to promote behavior changes it is not enough for people to commit verbally or even in writing. To be successful people need to commit in public, in front of their community, or at least one on one with another person.

The reality is that public awareness campaigns including advertising and other activities build understanding and educate the public but they are rarely successful in creating and maintaining new habits and behaviors. For people to actually stop smoking they often need a lot of help. It isn’t enough for them to commit verbally or even to write a contract with themselves. They often need to publicly announce their commitment to their family and friends and engage their family and friends in keeping them on track. It is the social contract that is most often the most helpful.

In the same manner, sustainable behaviors like installing low flow showers and toilets, reducing food waste and walking the last mile take more than just educating the public to actually become a habit and a way of life. While you can discuss and talk about all the benefits of low flow showers and toilets, a direct ask and help in actually installing is generally the only way to help someone actually accomplish the task.

In the case of food waste and walking the last mile not only must we stop talking about it but we need to keep asking people to do it and help them start to incorporate the behavior into their lives slowly but surely. Starting with small steps can be helpful. Setting a goal of walking home once a week is achievable especially if your friends and family ask you to do it and then ask you to confirm you did it. After a while of doing it once a week, doing it twice a week is not that much more difficult. The same applies to reducing food waste. Creating a section of your refrigerator for food that must be eaten soon can help. Weighing your waste once a week and setting a lower target for each subsequent week can be done especially if your friends come over and do the weighing.

Fostering sustainable behavior habits turns out to be quite similar in practice as to what is required to stop smoking, lose weight and even exercise more. Joining a group that meets on a regular basis and discusses and helps one another improve is one of the most effective ways to do this. The more your friends and family do it, the more you will do it. The more you do it, the more your friends and family do it. Social conditioning as social psychologists have found is very effective.

For more information and ideas from Dr. McKenzie Mohr: http://www.cbsm.com/pages/guid...