Recycling as Altruistic Behavior: Normative and Behavioral Strategies to Expand Participation in a Community Recycling Program

Abstract

Experimental and survey data were gathered from residents of a large urban neighborhood with a community wide curbside recycling program in order to determine the extent to which recycling could be conceptualized as altruistic behavior. Results confirmed that recycling behavior is consistent with Schwartz's altruism model, according to which behavior is influenced by social norms, personal norms, and awareness of consequences. Data further showed that a block-leader program, in which residents encouraged their neighbors to recycle, influenced altruistic norms and increased recycling behavior. Prompting and information strategies were also introduced into the community recycling program as experimental interventions in order to com- pare their effects with the block-leader approach. Results showed that prompting and information increased recycling behavior but did not affect norms and attitudes. Further- more, all the intervention strategies influenced behavior independently of the measured norms; block leaders had the most substantial impact, prompts had the next greatest impact, and information had the least.