green behavior

What makes us go green? As a behavioral scientist, I am excited to see research that begins to answer this questions. As with most research questions, however, research studies typically provoke more questions than they answer. We don't exactly know why we engage in green behavior, but we are getting an idea of what things might make us behave "more green."

A few things we've learned about what might promote people to recycle:

(1) Being reminded helps a lot.
A study in a university setting showed that just by posting signs to remind individuals to recycle (in proximity to a convenient way to do it), recycling increased by 29%.

(2) If we get feedback on how we're doing, it helps a lot.
In another university setting, as a result of just posting the number of aluminum cans recycled the previous week, recycling increased by 65%.

(3) Making recycling fun can help a LOT.
This is not a published study, but it is definitely my favorite.  Just by making bottle and can recycling a game, this recycling unit was used 100 times in one night compared to a neighboring unit being used 2 times.   http://bit.ly/5kcgKx 

(4) If we think others are doing it, we'll do it too!

A really interesting study conducted in a hotel showed that the little signs asking guests to save water definitely make a difference in promoting towel re-use.  Moreover, a sign telling guests that 75% of the other guests are reusing towels helped even more.  And even more interesting?  A sign telling guests that other guests that stayed in the specific room they were staying in was even more influential.  That's right, for some reason, when the guests knew that other guests that had stayed in their same room were towel re-users, they were more likely to reuse themselves.

As a follow-up, there is a study in progress to evaluate whether individuals will be more inclined to save water and energy if their residential use bills give them the numbers about how much their neighbors are saving.

Humans are interesting animals, aren't we?