Context
Changing an individual’s or group’s conservation behavior is hard. It is even more difficult if durable and spreading change is required (De Young 1993). But initiating change when the target behavior is difficult to identify beforehand would seem impossible. Yet, that is the behavioral challenge we face when adapting to energy descent and the climate crisis.
We can begin by acknowledging the changing biophysical context and how it has created an entirely new behavioral context. Central to this changed behavioral context is the challenge of changing unspecified future behaviors.
It is possible to critique current behavior change strategies given this new context. But more important is devising behavior change approaches that function well within this new context. One notion is that of behavioral aesthetics, foreshadowed below.
Optimism despite biophysical descent
There is one issue to deal with in a forthright manner. Any honest appraisal of the current and future biophysical context must necessarily be dismal. Frankly, as will be outlined in subsequent papers, we are late in accepting the reality of the environmental situation.
But responses are being developed and tested; some are succeeding. These papers join such efforts. Indeed, their goal is to encourage others to join, and soon now. They apply conservation and environmental psychology principles to the challenge of envisioning an urgent transition to a life lived locally and within resource limits.
Thus, despite what for some people is a bleak forecast, these papers are decidedly optimistic. Such a positive perspective is itself unusual and receives its own discussion. At this point it may suffice to adopt Antonio Gramsci’s, “Pessimism of the intellect; optimism of the will.”
Behavioral aesthetics
Behavioral aesthetics, while focusing on individual and small group behavior change, seeks to increase the behavioral and temporal scope and durability of the resulting impact. It goes beyond our current thinking on promoting environmental stewardship in several fundamental ways.
First, behavioral aesthetics recognizes that behavior is multiply determined; rarely is a single intervention (whether based on motive, belief or norm) sufficient to change, but more importantly maintain and grow behavior. More impactful change results from using multiple interventions, particularly those focusing on concepts often ignored including values, worldviews, and intrinsic satisfactions. We have less experience using these concepts yet guidance is available (e.g., Sheldon et al. 2011). Here the aesthetic derives from understanding that top-down, expert-designed, delivery-based approaches makes little sense; we are tasked with crafting conditions that boost and support long-term engagement.
Second, behavioral aesthetics moves beyond one-behavior-at-a-time approaches. It builds on a strategy advocated by Dietz, et al. (2009) of simultaneously changing multiple behaviors, each selected for their high immediate impact. However, it also follows their insight that in addition to near-term change, “lifestyle changes may become necessary in the out-years under constrained energy supply or economic growth scenarios.” Thus behavioral aesthetics focuses most of its attention on long-term and life-wide patterns of behavior (De Young 2011). Behavioral aesthetics also uses insights from Nye and Burgess’s (2008) study of the UK’s EcoTeams approach, namely that durable change is more easily achieved by promoting sets of behaviors that resonate in a mutually reinforcing way. While still behavior-centric, the focus shifts from promoting discrete behaviors toward promoting networks of actions that are or become mutually-sustaining. However, it does not follow their suggestion to externalize behavior maintenance to habit and routine; habitual response is not useful in situations of dramatic energy descent or climate disruption since it places too much of the process off-line, when what is called for is an engaged and adaptive response. What we need are behavioral entrepreneurs not automatons.
Third, behavioral aesthetics is distinguished by the satisfaction of fundamental psychological needs (Max-Neff 1991, De Young 2000, Kaplan & Kaplan 2009). Drawing on person-environment interaction concepts developed by the field of environmental psychology, it proposes the artful coordination of multiple behaviors with sets of innate and internal motives. Behaviors selected would need to fit well into everyday routines while also resonating with these deeper motives; it is the behavioral equivalent of Seligman’s notion that authentic happiness come from “living life as a work of art.” Here, the combined behaviors, when reflected upon, are experienced as something greater than their individual parts.
Finally, and most problematic for creating or adapting discrete behavior change models, the specific behaviors targeted cannot always be known long in advance. The changes needed later in this century cannot now be specified to the degree needed. Under this situation, we need to, in the present time, develop interventions that support and enable behavioral entrepreneurs (De Young 2019), not feed instructions to future automatons. The reasons for this are understood through an explanation of the emerging biophysical and resultant behavioral contexts.
References
De Young, R. (2019). Supporting behavioral entrepreneurs: Using the biodiversity-health relationship to help citizens self-initiate sustainability behavior. In Marselle, M., J. Stadler, H. Korn, K. Irvine & A. Bonn [Eds.] Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change. Switzerland: Springer.
De Young, R. (2011). Slow wins: Patience, perseverance and behavior change. Carbon Management, 2, 607-611.
De Young, R. (2000). Expanding and evaluating motives for environmentally responsible behavior. Journal of Social Issues, 56, 509-526.
De Young, R. (1993). Changing behavior and making it stick: The conceptualization and management of conservation behavior. Environment and Behavior, 25, 485-505.
Dietz, T., G. Gardner, J. Gilligan, P. Stern & M. Vandenbergh (2009). Household actions can provide a behavioral wedge to rapidly reduce US carbon emissions. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci, 44, 18452-18456.
Kaplan, S. & R. Kaplan (2009). Creating a larger role for environmental psychology: The Reasonable Person Model as an integrative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 29, 329-339.
Max-Neef, M. (1991). Human Scale Development: Conception, Application and Further Reflections. NY: The Apex Press.
Sheldon, K., C. Nichols & T. Kasser (2011). Americans recommend smaller ecological footprints when reminded of intrinsic American values of self-expression, family, and generosity. EcoPsychology, 3, 97-104.
Raymond De Young
School for Environment and Sustainability
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Updated: September 25, 2024
Copyright © 2024 Raymond De Young, All Rights Reserved.
