Prospecting the Disappearance of “Forced Extrinsic Motivators”

Have “forced extrinsic motivators” led to corporations developing a sense of intrinsic motivation and commitment to pro-environmental behavior? I ask this question as we face a new era driven by the pursuit of economic advancement at any and all cost to the environment.  This juxtaposes a recent history of an economy based on promoting and encouraging pro-environmental behaviors for a sustainable, environmentally responsible economic future for the U.S. 

Since 1970, the EPA has regulated corporations and has set industry standards in order to protect the environment.  These regulations, in essence, are extrinsic motivations.  Not rewards, but consequences.  If a corporation or industry fails to comply, they are “punished” through fines.  For example, coal mining waste regulations or the Clean Water Act.

It seems as though these regulatory extrinsic motivations have developed a sense of corporate intrinsic motivation and commitment to environmentally responsible behavior.  For example, over a thousand corporations have independently signed a commitment to align with the Paris Agreement to “combat climate change”.  I’m not entirely sure what actions companies like Apple, Kellogg, Levi Strauss, and many others will engage in to fulfill this commitment but at least there’s public accountability (low-carbonusa.com).  

I find it interesting over a thousand companies signed a declaration, since November 2016, for a low-carbon future: 

"We want the US economy to be energy efficient and powered by low-carbon energy...Failure to build a low-carbon economy puts American prosperity at risk. But the right action now will create jobs and boost US competitiveness.  We pledge to do our part, in our own operations and beyond, to realize the Paris Agreement's commitment of a global economy that limits global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius."

Not only does this exemplify the power of pledging and commitment, it is a great example of re-framing objectives and tailoring the message for its intended target audience.   The target audience:  “President Trump, Members of the US Congress, and Global Leaders” (low-carbonusa.com).   Re-framing the message from an environmental to an economic angle is language the current economically-obsessed administration can relate to. 

The decades since the inception of the EPA fostered a time for research to be conducted and evidence compiled about anthropogenic effects on the environment and public health.  This declarative knowledge paved the way for a deeper understanding of procedural knowledge for corporations to make a choice about engaging in pro-environmental behaviors or not. 

As regulations face extirpation, the durability of corporate commitment will certainly be tested. If a company has a true intrinsic motivation to be environmentally proactive, it will continue to engage in pro-environmental behavior.  At the same time, consumers (like us in SNRE) can continue the influence of extrinsic motivators (consequences) on companies and industries choosing otherwise.  As the current administration deregulates environmental policies, we may not have an agency like the EPA to report “illegal environmental activities”.

But we, the consumer, can “hit them in the pocket” by not supporting (purchasing from) companies engaging in environmentally irresponsible behaviors.  Commitment to the environment develops new social norms when we begin to embrace only those intrinsically motivated, environmentally responsible companies. 

“The only real, practical, hope-giving way to remedy the fragmentation that is the disease of the modern spirit is a small and humble way -- a way that a government or agency or organization or institution will never think of, though a person may think of it: one must begin in one's own life the private solutions that can only in turn become public solutions.” 

~Wendell Berry~

Berry, Wendell. 1977. "The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture." San Francisco: Sierra       Club.

Gross, Daniel.  03 March 2017.  "A Cruel False Promise On Coal".  Slate Magazine.  Retrieved       from http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_juice/2017/03/trump_s_executive_order_won_t_bring_back_coal_jobs_regulations_aren_t_what.html 

lowcarbonusa.org. 2017.  "Business Backs Low-Carbon USA."  Retrieved from     http://lowcarbonusa.org. 

Psychological Interventions in New Exercise Franchises

Over the past year, I have become obsessed with Orange Theory, a new exercise franchise focused on high intensity interval training. And, interestingly enough Orange Theory uses various concepts that we have discussed in this class to engage clients, create results and encourage commitment to the routine.

The routine is focused around a class, which participants sign up for in advance via a smartphone application. Once signed up, a participant must cancel over 24 hours in advance, otherwise they are charged a cancelation fee of $20, not an insignificant amount for a grad student

During the class, participants wear heart rate monitors. The goal of the class is to achieve various heart rate targets, indicated as “zones.” There are four heart rate zones, demonstrating the intensity of the workout. For example, a resting heart rate would be in the blue zone, while a hard run (approximately 90% of an individual’s maximum heart rate) would be in the red zone. An individual’s performance is then displayed on large TV. Each participant has a small box on the TV that shows their heart rate and changes colors to show which zone the person is in at any given time. Throughout the class, the instructor will provide direction on how intense the workout should be, along with the target zone for that portion of the class. Participants also earn “points” throughout the class for each minute that they spend in the orange or red zone. Last, at the end of the class, participants get an email that summarizes their performance (see example below).

The studio also does a great job of building community. People want to come to the class, and they are proud to be a member. They wear it like badge of honor. They even once did a marketing campaign where people reflected on why they workout. The theme was, “I burn for _____.” For example: “I burn for my kids” or “I burn for my husband.”

They also have periodic competitions where individuals can set goals (e.g. loose 5 lbs in one month), and they hold participants accountable for those goals.

I believe this is a great demonstration of the following class concepts:

·       Commitment is gained through the signup and the cancellation fee.

·       Feedback is provided through the TV screens in an easy to understand way using the heart rate zones. Summary emails also show progress over time.

·       Intrinsic Motivation is encouraged through the community and the pride that members show in coming to the studio. People think “I’m the kind of person who goes to Orange Theory,” and this motivation is only encouraged by the feedback discussed above. Extrinsic motivation may also be seen through the mild sense of competition that comes as people try to maximize their points and burn the most calories in the class.

·       Goal Setting is facilitated through the periodic competition and through the regular feedback provided.

All in all, I think this is an excellent example of how some of the theories we discussed can be applied to encourage positive health behavior. Can you think of others?

Framing the Story

John Stuart Mill, an English philosopher, said “Every great movement must experience three stages: ridicule, discussion and adoption”.  Pelletier and Sharp propose successful behavior change begins with tailoring messages targeting three behavior change stages: detection, decision and implementation (Pelletier and Sharp, 2008). In either case, the message is comparable, but the words used in framing the concepts imply different intentions and outcomes.  I find myself reflecting on the crucial framing of words to provide information during the environmental education programs I facilitate. 

Two concepts “struck me” from lectures and readings:  how we, as environmental educators, frame our messages and how we tell the story.

During a recent public education program which focused on “Backyard Sugaring”, I was explaining to a group of children about why it’s “kinda cool” to test the sugar content in a bucket of sap drawn from a Maple tree.  The children quickly became engrossed in watching a hydrometer bob up and down in the sap.  They eagerly determined the sap contained 2% sugar because that’s where the hydrometer line hit the top of the sap. 

I took the “experiment” one step further and asked “Now, how many gallons of sap are needed to make one gallon of syrup?”  Everyone looked at each other as if that person had been given the magical formula. 

I explained “We use the rule of 86…if we had 86 gallons of sap with a 2% sugar content, we divide 86 by 2 and what do we get?”  The children were silent as they calculated the answer in their heads.

“43!” the children eagerly exclaimed in unison. 

I asked, “What would happen if we double the sugar content?”  This appeared to present some confusion. 

I re-framed the question, “How many gallons of sap would we need to make one gallon of syrup if we had 4% sugar in the sap?”  Eventually, everyone came to consensus on 21.5 gallons.   

“Ohmygosh,” exclaimed one of the girls. “I didn’t know there was so much math involved-I’d never be able to make syrup!”  

This critical juncture provided me invaluable insight on how to understand my audience and the importance of recognizing different learning styles.  I needed to quickly find a way to minimize the negative, “too confusing/too overwhelming” emotion becoming associated with the process. 

Again, I tailored my reply, “Math isn’t necessarily the focus of making maple syrup.  The math might be important to commercial maple syrup producers but what’s really important today is to understand the general process of making syrup.  But, syrup is more than just a topping on pancakes.” 

I told her stories of all the “cool things” experienced during the sugaring process.  Using imagery of seeing raccoons emerge from their winter hide-away and spring flowers “wake up from their winter nap” was fundamental in shaping the mystery and “interestingness” of Nature.  We continued to talk about what it means to care for the Sugarbush so the trees (and environment) stay healthy and we can continue to work with them for many years to come.  Conceptually, I tailored the true message about the benefits of being in Nature; shifting her focus from the scary math she was connecting to the environmental subject in a similar way suggested by Pelletier and Sharp (Pelletier and Sharp, 2008).

I would posit cultivating pro-environmental behaviors at the developmental life phase of an individual. Starting at this point might prevent the need for some of the adult behavior change models and interventions we’ve studied.  Dr. DeYoung mentioned children’s innate curiosity.  Childhood is akin to detection; children are always exploring the environment around them.  This would be the most opportune time to develop pro-environmental behaviors; while children are creating cognitive maps. None of the variant categories introduced in lecture included children.  Why?  Perhaps because there’s no behavior to change….this is the population whose behaviors are being developed and shaped.

However, understanding life stages, realizing your audience may be comprised of assorted stages, and adapting how messages are delivered (framed) are vital to the success of environmental educational process.  Understandably, categorizing variant populations (post-childhood) in order to relate to them for behavior change is important.  Respectfully, I feel the fundamental way in which we, as “experts”, frame our assessment of the population (the assorted variants), may need to be re-evaluated and re-framed.  In class we discussed how environmental experts have fallen short of relating to people because of an over scholarly or academic approach.  I concur it’s important to know your audience, but I ask, would you be motivated to change your behavior if you knew you were judged and labeled as a laggard?

De Young, R. & M. C. Monroe. 1996. Some fundamentals of engaging stories. Environmental Education Research, 2: 171-187.

Herremans, I. M., Herschovis, M.S. & Bertels.  2009.  Leaders and Laggards: The Influence of Competing Logics on Corporate Environmental Action.  S. J Bus Ethics. ppg. 89-449. doi: 10.1007/s10551-008-0010-z

Pelletier, L. G. & E. Sharp. 2008.  Persuasive communication and proenvironmental behaviours: How message tailoring and message framing can improve the integration of  self-determined motivation. Canadian Psychology. ppg. 49(2): 210-217.    

Targeting norm messaging based on aspirational groups

The main take away that I had from this past week’s readings (particularly Schultz et al, 2007 and Cialdini 2003) is what a challenge and pain it is to effectively utilize normative messages when trying to change behavior. There are two main problem points that captured my attention.

First, as Cialdini (2003) discusses, providing the message “many people are doing this undesirable thing” has the underlying and very powerful message of “many people are doing this.” This can cause people to justify doing the “undesirable thing” or potentially engage in more of the behavior after seeing it as more socially acceptable and prevalent. In almost every area of behavior we discuss in this class, it seems that it wouldn’t be “hard” for people to behave in a more environmentally friendly way (e.g., carpool, take buses, bike, eat less meat, recycle, turn off lights, compost), but it is absolutely the norm to behave in “undesirable ways” from the perspective of the environment.

Second, the experiment from Schultz et al (2007) showed how providing normative information on the average energy use of houses led households with higher than average energy use to reduce their use and lower than average energy use to increase their energy use (both groups moved towards the average, or norm). The study also found that adding injunctive messages stopped the backslide for the low energy users, but still, this intervention did not lead the low energy users to improve at all.

This ineffectiveness of normative messaging is a huge problem when trying to change behavior on a large scale. One idea that I had is the possibility to provide more targeted normative messaging (similar to the idea I had for micro-targeting messaging in last week’s blog). For example, in Schultz’s experiment, what if instead of considering all households as one group and providing information that would unavoidably lead half of the households to realize they are using less energy than average, and face a potential boomerang effect, the households were split into more groups. Then, any household, outside of the absolute best, could be given information where they perform worse than that groups average. For example, a household that uses less energy than average, but still uses more than “high performing households” can be provided information that they use x% more energy than their high performing neighbors. This could help achieve a wider behavioral than using the average of the entire group.

I think this sort of flexible reference point/norm is something that some athletes do very well (always pushing the group they associate with and that they are trying to surpass). For example, Isaiah Thomas (a player for the Celtics who was the last pick of the NBA draft in 2011 and is only 5’9” tall), for his entire career has played with am ever-changing chip on his shoulder. At first the chip was that he was better than players drafted ahead of him and he belonged in the NBA. Then as he succeeded, the chip became that he should be a starter. After he became a starter, the chip shifted again that he should be an all-star. This season, Isaiah Thomas has the second highest scoring average of any NBA player (and yes, I am a Celtics fan and looking forward to NBA playoffs if you couldn’t tell). Isaiah Thomas, like many professional and amateur athletes, is always placing himself among a group that he isn’t yet a part of and needs to improve to become a part of. Can this same tactic be effective through normative messaging to try to promote and increase environmental behaviors? Will individuals become resentful if they are continuously told they are below average as they improve? Maybe there is some happy medium – what do you think?

- Noah Feingold

References:

Cialdini, R. (2003). Crafting normative messages to protect the environment. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 12: 105-109.

Schultz, P. W., J. M. Nolan, R. B. Cialdini, N. J. Goldstein & V. Griskevicius (2007). The constructive, destructive, and reconstructive power of social norms. Psychological Science, 18: 429-434.

Creating Habits

While preparing for today’s lecture, I enjoyed reading Verplanken et al.’s (2008) article about opportunities to discontinue and change habits. As Ray also highlighted in class, the researchers found that the likelihood of changing a habit increased during a transformational moment in the individual’s life—in the case of the study participants, during a move, although both Ray and the researchers suggested that it could also occur during other major life events (i.e. going to college or having a child). 

The researchers determined that these major life events, when combined with values that are associated with the target behavior, created circumstances that caused individuals to be more likely to change their habits. The researchers specifically studied commuting behavior and found that individuals who were environmentally-concerned and moved were more likely to travel to work using public transportation, as compared to others who were similarly concerned and did not move, or did move and were not concerned. 

As an aside, I think that it would have been helpful if the researchers determined if the respondents planned to utilize public transportation before their move; personally, I switched from using a car to public transportation after I moved into my first apartment, but I chose my apartment purposefully so that I would be within walking distance of the train. I suppose the detail could be academic, but I think it would be interesting to know if the study respondents planned to change their behavior beforehand, or if they hadn’t given much thought to it previously but were open to it after moving.

Regardless, the study still suggests that there are interesting intervention opportunities available to individuals who are entering these major life events. I assume that some of these events are instinctively capitalized upon by marketers or institutions; many of the products available that are “absolutely necessary” for both college students and new parents are extensive and likely not too essential, and universities host organization fairs early in the school year for students to get more involved on campus (an example which Ray has admittedly already discussed in class). However, we can certainly take advantage of these opportunities with thoughtfulness and intention. 

Not necessary, but I do see some potential here.

To continue with the moving example, I imagine that there could be an interesting intersection with the community/Eco-Team based approach. If a community has their own Eco-Team, they can welcome new residents to the neighborhood with information about recycling, public transportation, the local farmer’s market, and any other useful procedural knowledge from which they may benefit. The team can then invite them to become a member of the team and attend their regular meetings. Such an approach wouldn’t be guaranteed to work, but I imagine that there would be a higher chance of durability for those behaviors that are tested due to their being introduced during this major life event. Plus, the commitment/feedback associated with joining an Eco-Team could be a nice boost to durability as well.

A few questions:

• Do you think there are other major life events during which we can encourage pro-environmental behavior change?
• Can you think of any habits that you picked up during one of these major life events? Or any that you tried but didn’t stick? Why or why not did they become a habit?

References

Verplanken, B., Walker, I., Davis, A., & Jurasek, M. (2008). Context change and travel mode choice: Combining the habit discontinuity and self-activation hypotheses. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 28.

A Frame's Worth a Thousand Words

Recently, the Yale School of Forestry came out with a new data visualization for the United States. It’s called the Yale Climate Opinion Maps – U.S. 2016. This new map has a drop-down list of different kinds of questions regarding climate change beliefs, risk perceptions, policy support, and behaviors. You can change different aspects of the map to look at these questions and how they vary across the country, states, or other subdivisions. 

For certain questions, like the one pictured above ("global warming is happening"), the map may look a bit homogeneous, which is reassuring -- the redder the color, the higher the percentage. But go just one down on the drop-down menu ("global warming is caused mostly by human activities"), and you might get something a bit less exciting...

The tool is a fun, useful visualization, but I'm writing about it now because it actually highlights a framing issue that I believe many Americans fall victim to. This map below expresses the response to the prompt "global warming will harm me personally."  It's pretty blue, huh? 

But if we tweak the question just a little, to, say, "global warming will harm people in the U.S.," we get a very different map.

So the situation we have here is this: respondents, who live in the United States, generally do not believe that global warming will harm them. However, these same respondents generally believe that global warming will harm people within the United States. Seeing as it's not a regional thing, there's something going on here. And that something is a framing issue. 

Climate change is typically seen as a "distant" issue for people in the United States. They feel that the issue will affect people who are further away (spatially distant) and/or future generations (temporally distant). Basically, they feel like it will effect everyone except them! So how do you motivate a population that thinks they won't be affected by climate change, even if they think their neighbor might be? 

Luckily, an issue of framing can be solved by framing! Too often today, we see climate change communicators presenting the parts about climate change that belong in movies like 2012 or Mad Max: Fury Road -- the flooding, droughts, extreme weather events. They're trying to get people to realize how dire our situation is, but these scare techniques can make a person feel helpless. And while the evidence for climate change may be stacking up, if people are scared by it, they're going to keep distancing themselves from the issue like we see here.

So if you want to try to get people to acknowledge reality and realize that they will be impacted by climate change, try promoting efficacy. It's like what Ray's always saying in class -- the declarative knowledge isn't as important. It's the procedural knowledge on how to get it done. When someone feels like they can do something about it -- when they feel like their individual actions will really help mitigate the problem in some way -- they will be more motivated to do something about it (Dickinson et. al., 2013).

As for the Yale map, I suggest you go play around with it a bit -- it's really an interesting tool! 

Sources

Dickinson, J. L., Crain, R., Yalowitz, S., & Cherry, T. M. (2013). How Framing Climate Change Influences Citizen Scientists’ Intentions to Do Something About It. The Journal of Environmental Education, 44(3), 145-158. doi:10.1080/00958964.2012.742032

Micro-targeting for Good?

Given my background as an Economics major in undergrad and working in Economic consulting prior to coming to Michigan, my intuition was that feedback would be one of the best ways to change behaviors. That is, people strive to make rational and optimal decisions, but lack the information or processing capabilities to do so (and feedback can fill that void). On the other hand, from prior exposure so Prospect Theory, I saw framing as a very powerful tool (though potentially immoral, to elicit emotional and not logical reactions to shift behavior).

However, after reading about framing and feedback, I found myself very surprised by the complexity and challenges inherent in effectively using these tools. Regarding framing, Pelletier & Sharp (2008) discuss the importance of difference frames in each of three decision-making phases (detection phase, decision phase, and implementation phase). In addition, to focusing messages differently for each phase, differences in individual motives and beliefs (e.g. altruistic vs. egoistic) will lead to different responses to different frames. Perhaps it should be unsurprising that people vary significantly and their responses to messaging vary significantly. Still, this creates a challenge when delivering messaging and information to increase pro-environmental behavior – if everyone will perceive the same message differently, how can we effectively and efficiently foster change?

In a similar vein, I was surprised to read of potential issues that feedback faces. Among other issues, Buchanan et al (2015) identified inability to reach disinterested customers, limited durability, boomerang effects, and that motives in their study appeared to be primarily financial. With all these issues, feedback certainly is less effective than I expected and far from a catch all solution to environmental issues. (As a side note, feedback will likely be most effective when targeted as individuals that are in Pelletier & Sharp’s “implementation phase.”)

Still, reading about framing and feedback and the way frames and feedback has such varied effects on different individuals implores tailored frames specific to the individual. This brings up the idea of micro-targeting, something that has become a controversial topic following the US election. Stories have surfaced of how Cambridge Analytica used Facebook and other data to divide the US into 32 personality types and provide Trump canvassers with “political views and personality types of the inhabitants of a house” and “guidelines for conversations tailored to the personality type.” (Grassegger & Krogerus) The data available on everyone through social media is vast and can create a surprisingly vivid and accurate picture of all of us.

It seems to me that this sort of micro-targeting and utilization of big-data so that each frame is tailored and feedback is focused on those that will be most receptive could be incredibly successful at promoting pro-environmental behavior. But, is this method invasive? Is it manipulative? Is it moral? Can the benefits of promoting pro-environmental behavior justify this? What do you think?

- Noah Feingold

References:

Buchanan, K., R. Russo & B. Anderson (2015). The question of energy reduction: The problem(s) with feedback. Energy Policy, 77: 89–96.

Pelletier, L. G. & E. Sharp (2008). Persuasive communication and proenvironmental behaviours: How message tailoring and message framing can improve the integration of behaviours through self-determined motivation. Canadian Psychology, 49(3): 210–217.

Grassegger & Krogerus. “The Data That Turned the World Upside Down.” Motherboard. January 28, 2017. Available at https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/how-our-likes-helped-trump-win.