Boost Recycling? Try a Little Persuasion

Peter Griffiths, PlanetArk 16 Nov 07

LONDON - How do you persuade people to reuse their hotel towels, recycle more rubbish and protect the countryside when they go for a walk?

Rather than relying on dire environmental warnings, one author and academic thinks the answer lies in understanding the subtle social pressures that influence behaviour.

Professor Robert Cialdini, a social psychologist at Arizona State University, says the desire to conform is so strong that people are far more likely to change their ways if they think their neighbours are doing the same.

In a new book, he argues that public appeals would be more effective if they were reworded using the sort of persuasive techniques favoured by advertisers and sales teams.

"Passing yet another law or providing yet another tax incentive or installing yet another expensive technological fix to encourage desired behaviour has its limitations," he told Reuters in London before speaking at the Royal Society of Arts.

"If we can simply communicate more effectively ... it is almost costless. It is just framing the message differently."

Persuasion, he argues, should be seen not as an art but as a science that can be measured, studied and taught.

He cites the example of an experiment to see if guests could be persuaded to reuse their towels.

Cialdini says that simply by changing a few words on a notice in each bathroom, the recycling rate rose by 26 percent.

Researchers first left signs stressing the environmental benefits of reusing towels. They then repeated the experiment with new notices saying that most people who previously stayed in that room had recycled.

By changing the wording to emphasise what other people had done, the recycling rate rose dramatically.

Cialdini, who has studied human behaviour for more than 30 years, calls this "social proof", the tendency for people to look to others for cues on how to act.

In another example, officials erected notices at the Arizona Petrified Forest National Park to try to stop visitors from stealing fossilised wood.

Researchers found that signs explaining that visitors stole 14 tons of wood each year encouraged others to also take wood.

The signs sent the message that it was normal for lots of tourists to steal wood, Cialdini says.

After conducting experiments with different signs, researchers found that theft dropped when people were simply asked not to steal. It also fell when the signs were removed.

A third study found that households cut energy consumption when told they were using more power than their neighbours.

Cialdini explains his theories in more detail in the book, "Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion", written with Noah Goldstein and Steve Martin, published this month.

(Editing by Steve Addison)