Essay: What drives human behaviour within an environmental context

1.0 Introduction
The western world has over the past half century has seen a shift in its traditional cultural values and towards a society of ‘consumer culture’ to an extent that consumption can provide a person with meaning, purpose, and help improve their social standing and identity (Carlisle and Hanlon, 2007). While the link between increased consumerism and an increase in overall happiness is becoming less and less relevant (DeLeire and Kalil, 2010) this mentality has caused consumption levels and therefore the amount of waste produced to increase unsustainably over recent years (Singh et al., 2014). In light of the rise in consumerism, pressures on the earth’s resources has become critical, and as famously quoted by the WWF (2007); “If all the world’s citizens lived as Europeans, we would need more than two and a half planets to provide the necessary resources, absorb our wastes, and leave some capacity for wild species”. The exceeding of these ‘planetary thresholds’ that when surpassed can be irreversible and place the life of humanity itself at risk (Steffen et al., 2015), and thus has set an emphasis on finding a solution to the problem.
Recycling has been seen as one of the most important actions currently available to reduce the impacts of unsustainable consumption (Hopewell, Dvorak and Kosior, 2009) in many countries. The UK had previously faced a massive task in tackling its recycling problems where as recently as the year 2000 over 79% of its waste had been sent to landfill, and in turn set out a Waste strategy programme of which it aimed to recycle 33% of its waste by 2015 (Barr, 2007). This plan however is an example of a government project being successful by seeing the UK make a dramatic improvement in its recycling practises by almost doubling these rates since 2004, sitting in 6th place for recycling levels in Europe, recycling 40% of its waste (Eurostat, 2016).
While the recycling rate in Leeds is around the current UK rate at 40% Leeds city council have a made a pledge to match the governments 50% target by 2020 (Leeds city council, 2020) which however is looking unlikely and will therefore in turn provide the grounds of research of this paper. By using qualitative methods this paper will seek to understand the internal and external drivers that lead the students of Leeds to recycle their waste and in turn be able to provide the city council and the university with tangible recommendations. The study of just students was chosen due to the lack of research into the group type. While there have been various studies looking into waste management, most of these have been directed at households recycling behaviour (see Thøgersen, 1994, and do Valle, Reis, Meneze), and a few studies aimed at student’s recycling on campus. Much of this research however, has focussed on the influence of only a few variables without incorporating them into a wider framework (Lindsay & Strathman, 1997). Additionally, these studies have also taken place either far in the past or in places much different to Leeds. For example, Schultz, Oskamp & Mainieri (1995) argued that when recycling was first introduced it was reasonably time consuming and difficult to do so, and therefore people had to really care about the environment to want to recycle. However, as they argue, nowadays recycling is far more convenient and therefore the reasons behind students not recycling may extend beyond that of being ‘environmentally conscious’. The overall research aim therefore will be to address this gap in the literature and provide an explanatory model for the individual identified behaviours mentioned below and to in turn find out what drives the recycling behaviour of students. This will be able to help aid change the behaviour of students in which has always been a key obstacle in driving national change (Simanaviciene et al., 2015), and can therefore aid the council reaching such targets such as their 50% increased recycling and help make a step forward to a more sustainable future.
2.0 Literature review – develop this more – say why they’ve said 3 things – why these behaviours specifically
This literature review will aim to provide context towards the dissertation subject by splitting up the separate behaviours that effect peoples decision making towards waste management. Despite the complexity and interchangeability of the influencing factors (Phipps et al., 2013) these behaviours can be split up into three groups of independent variables as done by Barr (2007) of which are; environmental values, situational variables, and psychological factors. These three behaviours can be derived from Ajzen’s (!991) theory of planned behaviour:
This model in which has provided the basis for systematically investigating the factors which influence many different types of behaviours (Beck and Ajzen, 1991; Ajzen and Driver 2002) assumes that people act rationally and consider the consequences of their behaviour (Tonglet et al., 2004). These variables are defined below;
• Attitude (environmental values)- the individual’s favourable or unfavourable evaluation of performing the behaviour.
• Subjective norms (psychological factors)- the individual’s perception of social pressure to perform or not to perform the behaviour.
• Perceived control (situational variables) – the extent to which a person believes that they are able to perform a task
While these factors are not completely identical to the factors set out in Barr’s (2007) paper, the model allows for the addition and slight manipulation of the variables that may contribute to behaviour Ajzen (1991). This section will therefore seek to understand the current literature behind Barr’s (2007) slightly modified behavioural factors and identify the gaps in which this research will aim to contribute to.
2.1 Environmental values
The term environmental values can be defined as the underlying principles and beliefs that a person holds towards the physical environment as defined by Schwartz & Bilsky, (1990). Schwartz (1990) went on to further this definition by suggesting that human values can be grouped into two dimensions with ten motivational areas from self enhancement versus self-transcendence and openness to change versus conservatism (Gatersleben, Murtagh and Abrahamse, 2012). Using this inventory to general human values Stern (2000) went on to determine three of these values that could be attributed to environmental concern to which were; egoism, altruism, and biospherism, with conservative and egotistic individuals less likely to be concerned about the environment. There are many other ways to measure environmental values of which are being continuously developed (Dietz et al., 2005), to which the most commonly used is The New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) (Dunlap et al., 2000), in which measures whether people have either an anthropocentric or ecocentric world view. As in agreement with Stern’s valuations the NEP shows egoism in a negative light with biospherism and self-transcendence being shown in a positive one (De Groot & Steg, 2008). From this value measurement system Stern (2000) was able to emphasise how general values of a person can affect the more specific values and behaviours of a person, to which the NEP affects a person’s awareness of the consequences of their environmentally damaging actions and in turn the awareness of their environmental responsibility, and therefore bestowing a sense of obligation upon the individual. It is these behaviours that this research will set out to identify, if present at all in the participants to see whether these behavioural factors can be used as a tool to changing environmental behaviour. The stark polar-opposite behaviours determined in Schwartz’s (1990) original dimensions can be argued to have been somewhat lessened with the recent emergence of the strong to weak sustainability scale (Pearce and Atkinson, 1993) to which refers to nature being on equal terms with humanity (strong sustainability) to humanity using sustainability as a tool to benefit them, such as placing a price on nature (weak sustainability). The growth of this theory can be seen as a direct result of an increase in environmental sustainability discourse, where the government is making attempts to make a compromise between that of economic growth and environmental sustainability (Barr, 2007). The result of this therefore, especially in the UK, is a great increase in the significance of environmental values instilled in the population where concern for the environment has almost become a social norm (Derksen and Gartrell, 1993). If this research were to also to be true in Leeds, people’s behaviour could be easily changed provided that they have the facilities available to do so (Jackson, 2005) and hence result in an easier task of improving waste management behaviour in Leeds, as discussed in the next section.
2.2 Situational variables
This second factor that could influence a person’s behaviour refers to the individual context, such as the availability of recycling services and the sociodemographic factors of an individual (Barr, 2007). The research into this factor isn’t as comprehensive of the previous one and mainly focusses on the availability of environmental services available such as the paper written by Guagnano, Dietz, and Stern (1994). This paper focussed on how the increase in efficiency of curbside recycling collection can have a significant effect on peoples recycling behaviour and can even have the greatest influence over the other variables discussed. Additional factors other than the increased ease of recycling also contribute to the effectiveness of increased service provision as it can have a positive effect on the behavioural norms surrounding recycling in which will be discussed in section 2.3. While a paper by Derksen and Gartrell (1993) did lessen the significance of the effect of curbside collection, saying that environmental attitudes still played a strong role there is an overall agreement in the research that better access to recycling facilities tends to lead to people recycling more (Ball & Lawson, 1990).
There is not a clear example from the literature that draws a strong link between socio-demographic factors such as age and gender and to the level in which these people, and with many papers disregarding this link completely (Ilevbare, 2015; du Toit, Wagner and Fletcher, 2017). While there may not be a strong correlation between how people behave and their respective socio-demographic characteristics, a link has been shown to be found between these characteristics and the success of different government interventions on different demographics Schultz, Oskamp, & Mainieri, 1995). For example, for a less financially affluent society, who may not be internally driven to recycle, providing them with an external financial incentive may be considerably more effective than providing more affluent areas with that same financial reward, where internal incentives may have to be addressed. Overall therefore, even though the socio-demographic factors may not influence the way people recycle the information could be hugely significant in providing direct and effective schemes to different areas where the technique would ‘provide a basis for selecting target markets and developing optimal promotional programmes for individual target segments’ (Geller, 1989).
The third situational variable that we can address would be the environmental and behavioural knowledge that people have in which play a large part waste management behaviour (Barr, 2007) and if true would provide Leeds city council a platform on which to improve people’s recycling behaviour on. There has been significant research on proving the link between the amount of knowledge someone has about how and what to do with their waste and them subsequently behaving in an appropriate manner in their waste disposal (Schahn and Holzer, 1990; Hines et al., 1987). But however, these older theories on the linear relationship of increased knowledge leading to pro-environmental action were subsequently seen to be proven wrong (Kollmuss and Agyeman, 2002). The role of knowledge was seen to have an indirect effect on pro-environmental behaviour (Kitzmuller, 2013), with the task of such knowledge being to assist people in changing their environmental values and then in turn change their environmental practises (Latif et al., 2013). Overall however, while environmental knowledge may not be a necessary pre-requisite for pro-environmental behaviour (Kollmuss and Agyeman, 2002) without knowledge, there would be no chance for people to act in an environmentally friendly way (Latif et al., 2013).
2.3 Psychological factors
Psychological factors consists of a wide range of differing variables that be linked to recycling behaviour. These variables are all fundamentally linked however, by the fact that they are all personality characteristics and the perceptions via social norms for example that people have towards their actions (Barr, 2007). The first of these variables was discussed by Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) who highlighted the importance of other people’s recycling behaviour of influencing an individual’s recycling rates and that ultimately individuals are more likely to change their behaviour to a behaviour that is seen as a social norm and that increased awareness of other people recycling would aid the change in behaviour (Vining and Ebreo 1990). A paper by Tucker (1999) emphasised the significance of this effect by studying the effect of curb side placement of recycling bins in Scotland, where he found a linear relationship between the amount of bins that were set out and the amount that households recycle. It is evident therefore that social norms do play a role in influencing peoples recycling behaviour, but to what significance this is still remains uncertain and will be looked for within this research.
Scholars had argued of the importance of personal norms as well as societal pressure in influencing the way people behaved and was initially excluded in Ajzen’s (1991) theory of planned behaviour. This resulted in Beck and Ajzen (1991) measuring the behavioural drivers behind shoplifting with the inclusion of a persons perceived personal moral obligation. They argued that “perceived moral obligation seems to contribute to the formation of intentions to perform dishonest behaviours” even if the significance of someone’s personal moral obligation is limited. Conner & Armitage (1998) agreed with this statement and said that including a measure of personal norms when analysing moral of ethical behaviour is appropriate and should be considered. Given the positive effect that recycling can have on the environment such as diminishing waste in landfills or reduced pollution in the oceans it is quite obvious that the choice to recycle can be considered a moral decision (Chu & Chiu, 2003). Tonglet et al. (2004) when researching this variable did notice its significance but couldn’t fully explain environmental behaviour but makes a contribution along with other variables towards motivating an individual to recycle.
An additional psychological factor is the degree to which an individual feels the impact or if they are having an impact when deciding whether to or not to behave environmentally. Firstly we can analyse the literature of the impact that the threat to an individual’s well-being has on influencing behaviour. According to Baldassare and Katz (1992) the threat to an individual’s well-being is the biggest influencer on people’s behaviour, and especially among students; overriding many of the other factors discussed above. These findings have been further reinforced by studies conducted by Hines, Hungerford, and Tomera (1987) emphasising the positive relationship between environmental concern and environmental behaviour. The study also concluded the difference between the younger and older generations. While the older age groups were most associated with their overall environmental practices, younger generations were more associated with behaviour relevant to environmental threat, and is something therefore to take into account when looking at methods to target young students. Given the huge scale of environmental issues worldwide it wouldn’t come as a huge shock that individuals may feel their recycling efforts wouldn’t have a significant impact whatsoever. This idea was highlighted by Hooper and Nielsen (1991) who researched the extend to which a behaviour will have a tangible impact. They, too little surprise, found that individuals that thought their actions were making an impact were more likely to act environmentally. The idea therefore that individuals need to feel personally responsible and feel that they are playing a part in helping the environment will play a significant role in future policy making (Maibach, 1993).
2.4 Contribution to the literature
Overall, as can be seen from the above review there has been a plethora of research done into what drives human behaviour and what drives it within an environmental context. The literature however, has a very broad sphere of subject that it addresses and when that comes down to selecting effective and appropriate policies to help change a demographics behaviour, it may not be completely helpful. By isolating the three main behaviour groups as identified in Barr’s (2007) framework this paper will aim to provide a more specific set of data to allow a greater understanding to what influences and how to change the student demographics behaviour.