How to behave better towards the environment

Victoria University of Wellington's Wokje Abrahamse talks about environmental behaviour change, and projects to get people to save energy and use their cars less.

What would encourage you to take the bus instead of driving your car? Or to use less electricity in your home?

Environmental psychologist Wokje Abrahamse says there are some effective - and less effective -ways to encourage people to change their habitual behaviours.

It can be hard to take a train when you're used to driving your car - until you find the right motivation.

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Wokje Abrahamse is an environmental psychologist at Victoria University of Wellington. It's an area of research, she says, which broadly looks at peoples' relationships with the natural and built environments.

She is interested in how to foster environmental engagement and encourage people to lead more sustainable lifestyles.

"I look at what motivates people to engage in pro-environmental behaviour, what are the barriers ... and how can we know how effective behaviour change interventions are," says Wokje.

Getting people to do things differently is hard - we all know how difficult it is to change our own behaviour.

Social norms

She says people are often guided by social norms, or what other people do. For example, she says, in Wellington many people say thanks to the bus driver when they get off a bus - and newcomers to town learn it's the norm and simply copy what everyone else does.

Wokje comments that a similar thing happened in 2020 on public transport before wearing face masks became compulsory.

"I caught myself looking around, asking myself how many other people were wearing a mask and should I be wearing one?"

The use of social norms has been effectively used to encourage people to save electricity.

"When you know that you neighbours are saving energy or electricity, then studies have shown that's an effective way to encourage behaviour change," says Wokje.

Tailored information

Goal setting and feedback are useful ways to encourage behavioural change.

But simply providing information is not enough to change beliefs or behaviours, says Wokje.

Information can increase awareness, she says, but it does not automatically translate into behaviour change…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details