The DOI matches its Crossref record; 42 of the 42 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Comparing the effectiveness of monetary versus moral motives in environmental campaigning
Open accessAbstract
Environmental campaigns often promote energy conservation by appealing to economic (for example, lower electricity bills) rather than biospheric concerns (for example, reduced carbon emissions), assuming that people are primarily motivated by economic self-interest. However, people also care about maintaining a favourable view of themselves (they want to maintain a ‘positive self-concept’), and may prefer to see themselves as ‘green’ rather than ‘greedy’. Consequently, people may find economic appeals less attractive than biospheric appeals. Across two studies, participants indicated feeling better about biospheric (‘Want to protect the environment? Check your car’s tire pressure’) than economic (‘Want to save money? Check your car’s tire pressure’) tyre-check appeals. In a field experiment, we found that an economic tyre-check appeal (‘Do you care about your finances? Get a free tire check’) elicited significantly less compliance than parallel biospheric and neutral appeals. Together, these studies discredit the conventional wisdom that appealing to economic self-interest is the best way to secure behaviour change. At least in some cases, our studies suggest, this strategy is not effective. Environmental campaigns often promote energy conservation by appealing to economic rather than environmental concerns, assuming self-interest drives people’s behaviour. New research discredits such conventional wisdom and shows that, at least in some cases, it is more effective to call on people’s interest in protecting the biosphere to encourage behavioural changes.
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Cites
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Cited by
Psychological research and global climate change
Clayton, S., Devine-Wright, P., Stern, P. C., Whitmarsh, L., Carrico, A., Steg, L., Swim, J., & Bonnes, M. (2015) · Nature Climate Change · doi:10.1038/nclimate2622 · Cited by 601
Self-citationvan der Werff, E., Steg, L., & Keizer, K. (2013) · Global Environmental Change · doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2013.07.018 · Cited by 541
Self-citationSpillover effects in environmental behaviors, across time and context: a review and research agenda
Nilsson, A., Bergquist, M., & Schultz, W. P. (2017) · Environmental Education Research · doi:10.1080/13504622.2016.1250148 · Cited by 365
Nudging pro‐environmental behavior: evidence and opportunities
Byerly, H., Balmford, A., Ferraro, P. J., Hammond Wagner, C., Palchak, E., Polasky, S., Ricketts, T. H., Schwartz, A. J., & Fisher, B. (2018) · Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment · doi:10.1002/fee.1777 · Cited by 361
Explaining the Paradox: How Pro-Environmental Behaviour can both Thwart and Foster Well-Being
Venhoeven, L., Bolderdijk, J., & Steg, L. (2013) · Sustainability · doi:10.3390/su5041372 · Cited by 221
Self-citation
Metadata
- Authors
- Bolderdijk, J. W., Steg, L., Geller, E. S., Lehman, P. K., & Postmes, T.
- Venue
- Nature Climate Change
- Published
- 2012-12-09
- Volume
- 3
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 413-416
- ISSN
- 1758-678X (ISSN-L)
- 1758-6798
- OpenAlex
- W2143686166
- Cited by
- 432
- References
- 42
- FWCI
- 46.15
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
