The DOI matches its Crossref record; 9 of the 9 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Commitment and Behavior Change: A Meta-Analysis and Critical Review of Commitment-Making Strategies in Environmental Research
Open accessAbstract
Commitment making is commonly regarded as an effective way to promote proenvironmental behaviors. The general idea is that when people commit to a certain behavior, they adhere to their commitment, and this produces long-term behavior change. Although this idea seems promising, the results are mixed. In the current article, the authors investigate whether and why commitment is effective. To do so, the authors first present a meta-analysis of environmental studies containing a commitment manipulation. Then, the authors investigate the psychological constructs that possibly underlie the commitment effect. They conclude that commitment making indeed leads to behavior change in the short- and long term, especially when compared with control conditions. However, a better understanding is needed of the possible underlying mechanisms that guide the commitment effect. The authors see commitment making as a potentially useful technique that could be improved by following up on findings from fundamental research. They provide suggestions for future research and recommendations for improving the effectiveness of commitment-making techniques.
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Cites
The theory of planned behavior
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“There is considerable evidence that people bring their attitudes in line with their behavior, whether because of self-perception (Bem, 1972) or dissonance (Aronson, 1999) processes.”
BackgroundMeta-Analytic Procedures for Social Research
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Implementation intentions and goal achievement: a meta-analysis of effects and processes
Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006) · Advances in Experimental Social Psychology · doi:10.1016/s0065-2601(06)38002-1 · Cited by 3,236 · cited 1×
“A meta-analysis (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006) showed a medium to strong effect size for the relationship between specific goal intentions and actually performing the behavior.”
MethodA review of intervention studies aimed at household energy conservation
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The theory of planned behaviour: self identity, social identity and group norms.
Terry, D. J., Hogg, M. A., & White, K. M. (1999) · British Journal of Social Psychology · doi:10.1348/014466699164149 · Cited by 1,126
Commitment and voluntary energy conservation
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Cited by
How to SHIFT Consumer Behaviors to be More Sustainable: A Literature Review and Guiding Framework
White, K., Habib, R., & Hardisty, D. J. (2019) · Journal of Marketing · doi:10.1177/0022242919825649 · Cited by 2,386
Social influence approaches to encourage resource conservation: a meta-analysis
Abrahamse, W., & Steg, L. (2013) · Global Environmental Change · doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2013.07.029 · Cited by 802
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
Nisa, C. F., Bélanger, J. J., Schumpe, B. M., & Faller, D. G. (2019) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/s41467-019-12457-2 · Cited by 349
Call for testing interventions to prevent consumer food waste
Stöckli, S., Niklaus, E., & Dorn, M. (2018) · Resources, Conservation and Recycling · doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2018.03.029 · Cited by 230
Metadata
- Authors
- Lokhorst, A. M., Werner, C., Staats, H., van Dijk, E., & Gale, J. L.
- Venue
- Environment and Behavior
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2011-06-09
- Volume
- 45
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 3-34
- ISSN
- 0013-9165 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-390X
- OpenAlex
- W2012632260
- Cited by
- 294
- References
- 9
- FWCI
- 24.97
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
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- Lokhorst, A. M., Werner, C., Staats, H., van Dijk, E., & Gale, J. L. (2013). Commitment and Behavior Change: A Meta-Analysis and Critical Review of Commitment-Making Strategies in Environmental Research. Environment and Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916511411477
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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.
