What would it take you to change your shower to a low-flow shower head?
Do you love a long, hot and powerful shower? What would it take you to change your shower to a low-flow shower head? Be honest.
- A. I understood the environmental impact that it would have
- B. I have knowledge of and compassion for the watershed
- C. Someone came to my house and put in a free low-flow shower head for me
- D. I would be publicly recognized
- E. I verbally committed to doing it
- F. Everyone else on my block is doing it
- G. President Obama and Jane Goodall are doing it (not together!)
- H. All of the above.
Canadian environmental psychologist Doug McKenzie-Mohr believes that the last five reasons inspire more behavior change than the first two. I recently took a workshop with McKenzie, who coined the phrase “Community Based Social Marketing”, and was amazed to learn that studies indicate that “information intensive” campaigns are not very effective. Uh-oh – time to recycle the brochures. This is the method that we have been using to influence behavior change for years.
An earlier blog of mine explored what makes a person care about nature. Now I’m compelled to explore what makes a person change a behavior for the good of nature – the outcome I ultimately desire. Perhaps Community Based Social Marketing (CBSM) is the answer.
CBSM believes that people do not change behavior or do an activity because: