ABSTRACT
Chapters 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 of Psychology for Sustainability, 5th edition, comprise the section Psychology for a Sustainable Future, which reviews psychological theory and research relevant for understanding, and changing, unsustainable behavior. Chapter 5 draws on applied behavior analysis and social psychology to identify how and why situations are powerful drivers of unsustainable behavior and to describe how they can be modified to support sustainable behavior. It discusses situational contingencies: antecedents, including information, prompts, and green defaults, and consequences, including positive and negative reinforcement, incentives, and punishments. Intrinsic rewards and extrinsic rewards are more effective than penalties for encouraging sustainable behavior. Many environmentally relevant behaviors create contingency traps in which short-term and long-term consequences differ. Some are social dilemmas where what immediately benefits the individual is ultimately bad for the larger collective. The second half of the chapter covers the basics of social influence in three subsections. We Do as Others Do discusses modeling, reference groups, social norms (descriptive, injunctive, and dynamic), and norm salience. We Do as Others Push Us to Do focuses on persuasion and compliance, including research on source credibility, science skepticism, and other barriers to scientific communication, social media, cognitive dissonance and induced hypocrisy, and binding communication. We Do What Makes Us Look Best centers on strategic self-presentation and its evolutionary foundations and discusses social status, costly signaling, and conspicuous anticonsumption. The chapter concludes with a step-by-step description of an effective method for altering contingencies to promote sustainable behavior: Doug McKenzie-Mohr’s community-based social marketing.
