Fostering sustainable behavior through community-based social marketing.
Psychology has a central role to play in speeding the transition to a sustainable future, because a central aspect of sustainability is widespread behavior change. To date, however, most programs promoting sustainable behavior have featured information-intensive campaigns that make little use of psychological knowledge. Community-based social marketing is an attractive alternative approach in which promoters identify the activity to be promoted and the barriers to this activity and then design a strategy to overcome these barriers, using psychological knowledge regarding behavior change. The strategy is piloted to test its effectiveness and later evaluated when it is implemented on a broader scale. Unlike many information-intensive campaigns, community-based social marketing has been shown to have a much greater probability of promoting sustainable behavior. Two case studies are provided to illustrate the approach and its possible results.
McKenzie-Mohr
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Department of Psychology, St. Thomas University, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. mckenzie@stthomasu.ca
D003256:Community Participation / Q000639:trends*; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000639:trends*; D004787:Environmental Pollution / Q000517:prevention & control*; D005544:Forecasting; D006801:Humans; D008389:Marketing of Health Services / Q000639:trends*; D012919:Social Behavior