Dr Wesley Schultz, Psychology Professor, California State University San Marcos, January 2009, Conservation PPT to Leadership North County Alumni Group

1. Water Conservation:
Moving From Awareness to Action
Wesley Schultz, Ph.D.
California State University
Breakfast presentation for Leadership North County. Wesley Schultz,
Department of Psychology, California State University, San Marcos, CA, 92078.
Wschultz@csusm.edu. (760) 750-8045.
January 27, 2009

2. About the Presenter
 Ph.D. in applied social psychology
 Academic position (professor)
 Consulting and training through Action Research, Inc.
 Numerous consulting, training, and marketing projects
 Private: Southern California Edison (energy), Hewlett Foundation, SD
Water Authority, Brookfield Zoo, EDCO Waste Management, KAB
 State: California Integrated Waste Management Board (used oil recycling,
waste tires), TN, FL, TX
 Local and County: Napa, Madera, Los Angeles, San Diego

Cities of Vista, San Marcos, Escondido, Casper
 Federal: National Academy of Sciences, Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA), Department of Justice, U.S. Air Force
 International: United Nations, London Zoological Society, WWF

3. Conservation Means Behavior
 Reduce
consumption
 Purchasing
Decisions
(landscaping)
 New
Technologies
(low flow)

4. A Little Psychology
 Scientific study of behavior
 People act for reasons
 Successful behavior change strategies
require an understanding of the individual
and situational factors that motivate and/or
constrain behavior
 Many examples of failed (or not tested)
and even boomerang effects

5. Tools for Promoting Water
Conservation
1. Education
 Involves disseminating information
 Assumes that lack of behavior results
from lack of knowledge
 (this is generally not true)
 Consistently across behavioral domains,
research has shown small-to-null effects

7. So You Want to Change Behavior?

9. Tools for Promoting Water
Conservation
2. Price
 Cost directly affects behavior
 Problems with price triggers:
 Specificity (no spillover)—think incentives for
low-flow toilets
 Framing (conservation now framed as
“transaction”)
 Can potentially undermine long-term
changes (Cialdini’s fence)

10. Tools for Promoting Water
Conservation
3. Awareness
 Crisis can induce change
 Individuals rally around a cause (for a
short period of time)
 Crisis messages can boomerang if used
for too long
 And what happens when the crisis
passes?

11. Tools for Promoting Water
Conservation

12. Social Norms
 A promising alternative
 Conservation often means deviating from
the norm (this message will boomerang)
 Need to promote community support:
 Your neighbors are conserving
 People will disapprove if you don’t conserve
 How much you consume relative to others

13. Tools for Promoting Water
Conservation
VIDEO CLIP

14. Can we reduce consumption?
 Yes, but new tools will be required
 Price-triggers can work (but come with side
effects)
 Information generally won’t work
 Awareness and crisis will work for a short
period
 Fostering social norms provides a
promising alternative

15. References
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