Research project HL/DD/24 (Research action HL)
This study is being developed in answer to an explicit question raised in the call for proposals issued by the programme, "Levers for a sustainable development policy" (DWTC, July 1996). It deals with the often faltering relation between the opinions and attitudes expressed by individuals on environmental matters and their own related behaviour. Virtually every study that has investigated this relation has found it to be more modest than had been expected beforehand. This somewhat gloomy finding has important implications for policy officials who have to find ways of convincing the public to behave in accordance with the general interest when it comes to environmental matters. Are campaigns that are aimed at heightening environmental awareness effective? Or is it more appropriate to influence people more directly through financial penalties for undesirable behaviour and rewards for desirable behaviour? The case is argued for a lasting role to be given to general communication strategies aimed at changing and underpinning attitudes. Nonetheless, account should still be taken of the fact that: (1) differences exist in the motivational antecedents governing the consistency (or inconsistency) between environmental understanding and environmentally-aware behaviour, and that (2) all forms of behaviour - even that which motivates people to a high degree - tend to become routine, whereby it is gradually influenced more by the situation and the accumulated experiences of the individual with the behaviour. This perception is applied to the area of sorting household waste - a critical problem in the development of sustainable strategies for economic development. The study describes a new theoretical framework that incorporates these ideas and whose validity is investigated by means of eight studies.
From a theoretical perspective, the analysis is built on both previous psychological works on attitude-behaviour consistency as well as on marketing efforts involving mid-goal motivational structures. Although these two investigative channels have hitherto disregarded one another, we argue that only in combination with each other are they capable of explaining why behaviour does not always tally with attitudes and opinions in the case of complex types of knowledge-based behaviour such as the sorting of waste.
Part one of the proposal presents research in order to map the complex motivational structure that lies at the heart of waste-sorting behaviour. The sorting of waste will be important to different people for different reasons; some people have reasons that are more central within their self-image. These people will be more inclined to behave more consistently in line with their own attitudes. On the other hand, however, we also argue that even consumers with a "deep" attitudinal structure are not immune to the "routinisation" of behaviour.
People will only deliberate their values if they feel it is necessary; otherwise, they are just as inclined to endorse superficial attitudes and fixed situational factors as others.
Research into this hypothesis forms the second part of this proposal. People with a deeper value structure are rather inclined to ascribe errors in their sorting behaviour to themselves, whereas a person with a more superficial structure finds it more difficult to see or experience internal inconsistencies. This means they can find it easier to pin the blame on somebody else. In the final part, we argue that advertising can be used to make a person’s values salient and that "deep" consumers are more inclined to take heed of such adverts.
Working paper n° 13: The state of the art on domestic recycling research
D. Smeesters, L. Warlop, P. Vanden Abeele (KULeuven)
Working Paper n° 29 (februari 2000) : On selling brotherhood like soap : influencing everyday disposal decisions.
L. Warlop, D. Smeesters, P. Vanden Abeele (KULeuven)
Between green thoughts and green deeds: the relationship between environmental concern and source separation performance for individual consumers: final report
Vandenabeele, Piet - Warlop, Luk - Smeesters, Dir Brussels: OSTC, 2001 (SP0783)
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[Exhausted]
Tussen groene woorden en groene daden: overzicht van bevindingen en implicaties voor de praktijk: samenvatting
Vandenabeele, Piet - Warlop, Luk - Smeesters, Dir Brussel: DWTC, 2001 (SP0784)
[To download]
Between green words and green deeds: overview of results and practical implications
Vandenabeele, Piet - Warlop, Luk - Smeesters, Dir Brussels: OSTC, 2001 (SP0785)
[To download]
