Academic Article W14 P1

Effective Education and Communication Strategies to Promote Environmental Engagement - Lisa Zaval, James F. M. Cornwell.

-People worldwide perceive many important issues as distant, abstract, or remote, thus not requiring their immediate attention or response.

-The promotion of sustainable solutions to the climate crisis will involve changes to behavior at individual, household, and business levels. 

-Willingness to engage in change does not indicate into concrete action. For example, seventy percent of people in a survey were willing to decrease their energy use, but only two percent actually acted.

-People tend to use heuristics as rules of thumb to how their actions affect the environment rather than reviewing the actual effects of their actions.

-Personal values are all important to getting a person to change their behavior, so appealing to their values is a good way to get them to understand their impact.

-People are especially sensitive to social norms, and holding people accountable for their actions at a social level is proven to be effective at getting them to be more environmentally conscious. By putting out advertising that promotes “joining others to help out” is far more effective than advertising that just asks the viewer to help out. These norms need to be descriptive.

-By being given feedback about their energy use, people can essentially be trained to use less energy if they are “rewarded” with social incentives.

-Messaging should be created to recall and highlight experiences to better appeal to personal relevance of the issue. Using metaphors to equate unfamiliar facts to everyday experiences also helps. (for example, equating the effects of greenhouse gasses to the feeling of piling a bunch of blankets on top of someone.)

-The use of technical and scientific language should be avoided when appealing to the general public; this tends to alienate anyone who isn’t well researched in the topic.

-The use of group participation also helps to encourage people to be active. This may include real world experiences or just making a game out of it; both experiences stick in a person’s mind better because it will often be associated with a more positive and fun experience on top of the social gratification.