BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS APPLIED TO ENVIRONMENTAL/ECOLOGICAL PROBLEMS; A REVIEW1

Recent applications of operant technology, including the manipulation of environmental conditions and response consequences, have been directed toward the improvement of man-environment relations. This document summarizes the research designs, procedures, results, and conclusions of these recent behavioral interventions for ecological rebalance. Each of the 32 studies reviewed was undertaken since 1970; all studies were relatively successful in changing the probability of an ecology-related response; all studies incorporated basic methodologies applicable for large-scale, community programs; most of the investigations were conducted in field settings (e.g., college campuses, grocery stores, mobile-trailer parks, homes, movie theaters, public campgrounds, and a football stadium). Several of the studies are as yet unpublished. Sources for receiving documentation of the unpublished research are provided in this document. About 50% of the investigations reviewed were designed to influence behaviors related to environmental litter; the others were of behavior-modification programs that substantially increased bus-ridership, decreased lawn-trampling, promoted the purchase of drinks in returnable rather than throwaway containers, initiated a recycling process, or reduced energy consumption. Essentially, the interventions were either preventive in nature (i.e., designed to discourage environment-destructive behaviors before they occur), or remedial (i.e., designed to encourage behaviors that correct an existing environmental problem). Usually, the preventive measures emphasized responses priming (or prompting), while the corrective measures applied some form of positive reinforcement. Response priming was accomplished with modelling techniques, or with written and/or verbal prompts presented either publicly or on a personal, one-to-one basis. Among the positive reinforcement procedures were field applications of token economies, lottery systems, feedback programming, and intergroup contests, as well as individual contingency contracting. Some experimental designs provided for comparisons between the behavioral effects of response priming and positive reinforcement.     

Facilitating paper recycling: effects of prompts, raffles, and contests

The effects of prompts and reinforcement to promote paper recycling were compared in six university dormitories. For a Prompt condition, residents were urged to recycle paper for ecological reasons via flyers distributed to each room. For a Raffle contingency, residents were given one raffle ticket for every pound of paper brought to a collection center. For a Contest contingency, two dorms were paired and the dorm whose residents delivered the most paper won $15 for its treasury. Contingency awareness was strengthened via a flyer placed under the door of each resident's room. Flyers alone had little effect in increasing paper-recycling behaviors, but the raffle (substantially) and the contest (somewhat) increased the amount of paper brought to a dorm's recycling center. Students whose rooms were closest to the collection center showed the greatest participation. Removal of the reinforcement contingencies resulted in a return to baseline levels.     

Contagion in the Representational Field of Water Recycling: Informing New Environment Practice Through Social Representation Theory

Water shortages in Australia have highlighted an urgent need for alternative water sources, and technologically, water recycling is argued to offer the most cost‐effective, environmentally sustainable solution to these shortages. Yet public support for its implementation is low even in the drought‐stricken areas of Australia. Drawing from the theory of social representations, this study addressed community perceptions of water recycling. Three interrelated methodologies were employed in a self‐report questionnaire. Individual difference scaling/multidimensional scaling analyses of three word association tasks revealed that the emergent social representation of water recycling was contradictory in affect. Normative responses indicated an awareness of the need to use recycled water whereas the functional responses were associated with a fear of contamination. An analysis of differential use scales further revealed that the perception of contagion was specific to when recycled water had contact with the body. The discursive analysis of respondents' comments expanded on both these findings. The study identified the themata of purity/impurity as underpinning the social understanding of water recycling. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effect of self‐identity alongside perceived importance within the theory of planned behaviour

Self‐identity often predicts behavioural intentions after standard theory of planned behaviour (TPB) components are accounted for. However, it has been claimed this is due to conceptual similarity between self‐identity and perceived importance of the behaviour. We examined this claim within the context of recycling food waste. Participants (N = 113) completed questionnaires assessing intentions, attitude, perceived behavioural control, perceived norms, perceived importance, self‐identity, and past behaviour. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that self‐identity and perceived importance were distinct constructs. Further, after accounting for TPB components and perceived importance, self‐identity explained a significant amount of additional variance in intentions. The present findings therefore do not support this particular argument against the predictive utility of self‐identity.     

Why do residents accept a demanding rule?: Fairness and social benefit as determinants of approval of a recycling system1,2

Abstract: This study examined why people accepted a demanding rule in a recycling system that was newly introduced in Nagoya City. We focused on two social psychological topics: social dilemmas and fairness. While the new system succeeded in reducing waste, it imposed a burden on citizens without providing incentives and sanctions. In a research survey, 1442 responses from a sample of 3000 (48% response rate) were obtained using a stratified sampling method. The results showed that the new recycling system was approved despite the demands placed on citizens, with a preference for more strict rules such as penalties and surveillance for noncompliance. The main determinants of approval of the new recycling system were social benefit and procedural fairness, whereas the main determinant of preference for strict rules was outcome fairness. We argue that (a) social benefit should be emphasized to facilitate cooperative behavior in a social dilemma situation and (b) the government should ensure sufficient discussion with citizens and acknowledgment of their opinions.     

Development and analysis of a community-based resource recovery program

Five studies were conducted over a 10-month period to determine the effectiveness of specific procedures in encouraging recycling among residential neighborhoods. Results indicated that: (a) initial levels of participation in neighborhoods were frequently related to housing values; (b) weekly recycling pick-ups that coincided with garbage collection days resulted in higher levels of participation than pick-ups that occurred at other times; (c) notifying homes about the recycling program through distributed door-to-door brochures was more effective than soliciting participation through newspaper ads; (d) distributing containers to help residents separate recyclable from nonrecyclable material proved to be an effective procedure, especially when combined with frequent prompting (prompting alone did not have much effect); and (e) procedures that facilitated the greatest levels of participation were not always cost-effective. The subsequent combination of these procedures into a package program resulted in high levels of neighborhood participation that were cost-effective and maintained over a 6-month period.     

Effects of number and location of bins on plastic recycling at a university

The proportion of plastic bottles that consumers placed in appropriate recycling receptacles rather than trash bins was examined across 3 buildings on a university campus. We extended previous research on interventions to increase recycling by controlling the number of recycling receptacles across conditions and by examining receptacle location without the use of posted signs. Manipulating the appearance or number of recycling bins in common areas did not increase recycling. Consumers recycled substantially more plastic bottles when the recycling bins were located in classrooms.     

Increasing recycling in office environments: The effects of specific, informative cues

We investigated the effects of prompts on the recycling behavior of approximately 217 faculty, staff, and graduate students in two academic departments of a large university. During the intervention, two signs were posted in each department. One sign prompted recycling (posted above the recycling receptacle), and the other sign prompted proper disposal of trash (posted above the trash receptacle). Results of a multiple baseline design across the two departments indicated that the sign prompt increased recycling behavior. Installation of the sign prompts in close proximity to receptacles in Department A resulted in a 54% improvement over baseline. Posting of sign prompts over containers 4 m apart in Department B resulted in a 17% improvement, whereas positioning the signs and receptacles in close proximity resulted in a 29% improvement over baseline.     

Why do salmon go upstream in fresh water from oceans: Evolution of the global recycling of nutrients through higher organisms

The quasi‐homogeneous cold water mass lying deeper than 1000 m below sea level serves as a sink for, and hence is rich in, inorganic nutrients, including nitrates and above all phosphates, which, directly or through numerous food chains, have found their way to the ocean bottom. This cold water mass surfaces during the cold season in temperate zones and permanently in arctic/antarctic zones, which could support extremely rich marine life permitted by relatively low temperatures. Such fruits de mer are predated by rich marine faunas of local and migrating mammals and birds. As for the migrating birds, they breed during the short summer in both circumpolar zones of the earth, to bring the newly acquired biomaterial including inorganic matter to their overwintering sites of the temperate/ subtropical region. Through food chains mainly involving birds and insects, the nutrients accumulated in the deep sea waters would thus be brought back to the land, upwards even to the high mountains. A similar role may be attributed to salmonids and their southern hemisphere counterparts.

In the case of woodland birds, an estimate made in Japan indicates that ca. 10 tons per km2 of insects support the total insectivorous bird lives of the area. This figure may approximately be used as an index of the inorganic nutrients to be returned per annum to the soil through bird droppings and corpses. Using the number of salmonids caught during the peak period of the highly exploitative fishery perpetrated by Japanese fishing boats around 1910 near the mouth of Amur River, I estimate possible biomass contribution to the land from the sea by salmon returning to the upstream of the Amur in wilderness (ca. 6000 tons per annum). According to Arsen'ev (1930), a school of salmons swimming upstream became a victim of active predation by mammals and birds in the mountains. Whereas the total length of the main path of the Amur beyond the junction of Shilka and Onon Rivers is ca. 4000 km, the total contribution of biomass (and hence inorganic material) by salmonid fish to land would amount to, using the above index for birds’ annual predation of insects per unit area, an equivalent of 100 m‐wide zone along streams of a total length of at least 60,000 km, a distance which would cover a good part of smaller tributary currents of the Amur.

The coevolution of nutrient recycling through organism's migration throughout the global ecosystem would be difficult to explain by natural selection, because there cannot be competition for improvement with the unique system of global redistribution of nutrient materials. Also the time scale needed to bring about selection would by far exceed the generation time of organisms involved.