A chat may help convert a peer to a pro-sustainability stance
Study examines conversation as a vehicle for social influence

Date:
February 6, 2023
Source:
Ohio State University
Summary:
Changing the mind of someone who is dismissive of efforts to protect
the planet could be accomplished by sharing a pro-sustainability
point of view during a conversation, new research suggests.


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FULL STORY ========================================================================== Changing the mind of someone who is dismissive of efforts to protect
the planet could be accomplished by sharing a pro-sustainability point
of view during a conversation, new research suggests.


==========================================================================
In three experiments, researchers found that exposure to a
pro-sustainability opinion in a conversation or written exchange helped
coax people who held anti- sustainability views toward support for an environmentally friendly initiative.

Results also showed that people with a pro-sustainability viewpoint were
not persuaded to change their commitment by talking to someone with an
opposing point of view.

The researchers noted that many sustainable behaviors -- lowering the thermostat, recycling or buying fewer disposable products -- are household
or community endeavors that follow discussion and consideration. And so it follows, they say, that persuading others to adopt sustainable practices
could be achieved through a common social activity: talking about it.

"There has been research showing that when it comes to divisive issues,
people can get entrenched in their views, but we find that this is not
always the case, at least in the context of sustainability," said senior
author Nicole Sintov, associate professor of behavior, decision making and sustainability at The Ohio State University. "If I am anti-sustainability
and I'm talking to another anti-sustainability person, then I'm not going
to take more action to protect the environment. But if I talk to somebody
who is pro-sustainability, I'm going to move to match what their values
are, essentially.

"I think that is a particularly juicy finding, especially in today's
political climate." Sintov completed the study with first author Kristin Hurst, a former Ohio State postdoctoral researcher now at Southern
Illinois University, and Grant Donnelly, assistant professor of marketing
at Ohio State. The research was published online recently in the Journal
of Environmental Psychology.

In the first study, the team set out to determine whether having
a conversation about a sustainability topic could influence actual sustainability behavior - - on top of making a commitment to engage in
the behavior.

A total of 568 college student participants read a statement about a
university policy to expand plant-based food options in campus dining
halls. Pairs of participants were randomized to either share their
stances, thoughts and feelings about the plant-based foods policy or,
as a control, to try to guess the name of a famous person described in
a biography they were given to read.

For the last 30 seconds of the interaction, researchers gauging
participants' commitment to the planet-friendly cause told students in
two of three groups - - one discussing the policy and one the famous
person -- to decide how much effort they would put into performing a
task that would generate financial support for the plant-based foods
policy. The task involved clicking a computer mouse; reaching a specific
number of clicks in a set amount of time would trigger a donation toward
the university's investment in the plant-based food policy.

Results showed that having a sustainability conversation before committing
to take action in support of the issue increased sustainable behavior --
the clicking -- above and beyond the conversation or commitment alone. The conversation's effect on behavior could be traced in part to inducing a
sense of psychological safety by having the students show vulnerability
when disclosing how they felt about the plant-based food policy.

"Having this conversation where you self-disclose and take more
interpersonal risks elevates your sense of psychological safety, which increases the strength of your commitment to click with your partner,"
said Sintov, a faculty member in Ohio State's School of Environment and
Natural Resources. "Among the people who had the sustainability policy conversation versus the actor conversation, the commitment was stronger
-- the students were more engaged and came up with more ideas about how
to maximize the clicks." In the second study, 302 students were told
about the policy and rated on a 7- part scale how supportive they were
of providing more plant-based foods in campus dining halls. They were
then paired with trained research assistants - - acting as student
participants -- who verbally expressed a scripted opinion either in
support of or opposing the policy. A third study involving 545 students
had an identical structure, except that the interactions were in writing.

In both studies, individuals initially unsupportive of the policy who interacted with someone supportive of the initiative were more likely to
engage in behavior supporting the policy -- again, by clicking a mouse
to generate a financial donation.

"If you were paired with a pro-sustainability person, you're going
to click no matter what, compared to if you were paired with a con
person. What is most interesting, I think, is that this held for people
who were initially unsupportive," Sintov said.

Pro-sustainability participants, on the other hand, could not be swayed
to lower their commitment by a conversation or written exchange with
someone expressing the counterpoint.

Organized efforts to talk about behaving sustainably could have real-world applications in college roommate selections, the workplace and other
sectors, Sintov said, and ideally would spark stronger commitments than
those that people tend to make to ambitions set by a third party --
think taking 10,000 steps a day or saving 5% on an energy bill.

"Some goals come out of the ether and we'll say, yeah, OK, I guess I'll
do that," she said. "Rarely do we think to ourselves or, even rarer,
start a conversation by asking: 'What are our energy goals?' Just by
having a few prompts, we might see some movement."
* RELATED_TOPICS
o Earth_&_Climate
# Sustainability # Environmental_Policy #
Environmental_Awareness # Ecology
o Science_&_Society
# Educational_Policy # STEM_Education # Political_Science
# Ocean_Policy
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o NASA o European_Southern_Observatory o Privacy o Extinction
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========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Ohio_State_University. Original
written by Emily Caldwell. Note: Content may be edited for style and
length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Kristin F. Hurst, Nicole D. Sintov, Grant E. Donnelly. Increasing
sustainable behavior through conversation. Journal of Environmental
Psychology, 2023; 86: 101948 DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvp.2022.101948 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/02/230206104141.htm

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