Preserving Nature’s Harmony Exploring Green Initiatives for a Sustainable Environment

In the first place, the environmental protection is one of the most difficult challenges that humanity still faces until today. Adopting practices to conserve the planet and natural resources by using eco-friendly, sustainable and recyclable products and reducing waste is the responsibility of both governments and people. In light of the green movement, businesses and researchers attempted to study consumer behavior. Some researchers resorted to psychology and social science for this purpose as it can deliver better results than business hunches and best guesses. Among these techniques are discussed in two studies.

In the first paper, researchers aimed to achieve a certain goal which is to encourage consumers to perform eco-friendly acts for the cause of preserving the environment.
The research methodology consisted of two experiments on hotel conservation programs. The first experiment examined the impact of social descriptive norms on individual’s willingness to participate in environmental protection. This is done by comparing social norms against the conventional industry standard to determine which method is more effective in motivating hotel guests in a towel reuse program. To perform this experiment, researchers designed two types of message cards, one message used the industry standard approach that conveyed the significance of environment protection without any clarification or going deep into details. The second message expressed the descriptive norms and informed the guests that most hotel guests participate in their new resource savings program by reusing their towels. These message signs were printed and placed on washroom towel racks. The experiment lasted for 80 days and targeted 190 rooms.

After data collection and analysis, results showed that the descriptive norm signs were more effective in persuading the guests to reuse their towels than the standard environment signs, with a of 44.1 % higher towel-reuse rate. Intervention, in my perspective, it could be yielded than 44.1% if the destructive sign was more persuasive and more smoothly in its instruction. For instance, if he added in his descriptive sign that the guest contribution will prevent the environmental pollution or reduce the environment damage sort of. However, researchers believe that the rate could have been higher than reported. They believe that the reason the results were lower than expected was because the data was only collected from the individuals who have understandable notion to reuse the towel at least once during their residence in the hotel.

Another reason was that researchers were very strict and cautious to collect data and count from those who showed clear compliance with the program and excluded others.
In experiment 2, researchers aimed to examine whether the guests follow the social norms of their immediate surroundings more than the norms of the less proximate ones, and whether guests comply with the norms of a personally unimportant social category in the local setting than those of a more important one.
In my opinion it’s been difficult to apply or play the role of situational similarity and consistency of behavior in standard adherence to a certain category is potential going smoothly to be accepted in other categories and situations due to the increasing recognition of complexity to understand the nature of people and culture that is prevail there and it differs from country/region to another country/region.
For this experiment, five message signs were used to convey messages that encourage guests to reuse their towels. One sign displayed the standard message without any clarification or social norms. The other four signs conveyed four different messages based on different social categories, same room identity, other guests identity, citizen identity and gender identity. The signs were placed in washroom towel racks in 190 hotel rooms, and the experiment lasted for 53 days.
Researchers also selected a sample of guests and asked questions about the social categories used, to identify which of the categories were personally important to their social identity. The results showed that citizen and gender categories are the most important.
The findings revealed that the descriptive norm message that referenced guests of the same room (guests who previously stayed in the same room as the current guest) was the most effective message compared to the other four messages, with a 49.3% towel reuse rate. The results for other three message respectively: 43.5%, 40.9% and 44.0%.
The two experiments showed the power of social norms to encourage people to preserve the environment especially if the descriptive norms are linked to similarity in situation or surroundings.

In the second paper, the authors examined how social motives influence consumers to buy green products rather than conventional luxurious “non-green” products. In other words to promote the green biological products and trying to motivate the consumer and drag him gradually to buy them rather than conventional luxurious”non-green” products. The research consisted of three experiments conducted at a public university, with variations in parameters. The first experiment aimed to test the impact of status motives to choose between a green product to be seen as pro-social and caring for the environment and conventional non-green product that provides luxury and comfort for the consumer.

For experiment 1, the method consisted of data collection from a group of 168 students, 65 men and 103 women. Participants were placed in a computer lab in small groups separately and were asked to read a short story then imagine that they wanted to buy three products: a car, a household cleaner and a dishwasher and were given the choice between non-green, luxury and more efficient options or green but less efficient ones. Then they were asked to read another short story and choose the same products when the green options were made more socially attractive that showed high status of their owners as prosocial and environmentally-aware individuals.
The outcomes from the experiment 1 showed that using status motives influenced participants to choose the green product over the non-green ones and because they associated them with good status and reputation. In contract, with absence of the status motives, preference were more attracted to the luxury and performance of non-green products. Without status motives, 62.8% of participants chose the non-green car versus, while 74.3% chose the non-green household cleaner and 65.5% selected the non-green dishwasher. However, when status motives were used, preferences for green car increased to 54.5%, similarly to 41.8% for green cleaner and 49.1% for dishwasher.
Experiment 2 focused on examining the impact of status motives on choices for green versus luxurious non-green products when people were shopping in public versus shopping online in private. To achieve this, researchers repeated the same method for experiment 1 but alter some adjustments. The data was collected from 93 students (58 men, 35 women) at the same university. participants were placed in computer lab in small groups separately and were asked to read the same short story then imagine that they were shopping in public versus shopping online to buy three products: a backpack, batteries, and a table lamp and were given the choice between non-green, luxury and more efficient options or green but less efficient ones. Then similar to experiment 1, they were asked to read another short story and choose the same products in public versus online when the green options were made more socially attractive that signaled pro-sociality.

The findings showed that in the absence of status motives, participants preferred to purchase the luxury non-green products versus the green products whether shopping was being made in public or private. In contrast, when status motives were used, the tendency
to purchase the green products was greater when shopping was being made in public where buyers were under observation and less when shopping in private.
The third experiment was concerned with studying the extent of the consumer’s desire to buy a green product depending on price fluctuations, whether it was cheaper or more expensive than a non-green product. As before, researchers repeated the same method for experiments 1 and 2 but added some adjustments to the price. The data was collected from

156 students (50 men, 101 women) at the same university. Participants were placed in computer lab in small groups separately and were asked to read the same short story then imagine that they were shopping to buy the same three products. The green versions of the products were made cheaper than the non-green products. Then they were given another short story and were asked to choose between green products that were made more expensive than the non-green products. The outcomes of the experiment revealed that without status motives, the green product were more attractive when they were made less expensive than non-green products, which made sense from an economic prospective. Similarly, when status motives were activated, the green products were also more desired when they were made more expensive than non-green products, because buying an eco- friendly product at a high price was a good signal of reputation as pro-environmental individual. In contrast, when the price was down, status motives made green products less desirable than luxurious non-green products.

In fact, both of the two cases have something in common to let people join to save the environment to be prosaically or environmentalist voluntarily not forcefully but the method or the way that used differently from one to another. The two research papers discussed above highlight the importance and effectiveness of using social science research instead of traditional business hunches in order to understand and manipulate consumer behavior for environmental causes. One study focused on the social norms approach in two experiments conducted on guests of one hotel, while the other investigated status motives in three experiments which targeted university students.
According to the first research, implementing social normative messages is more effective in delivering the message than merely informing people of the importance of saving the environment. In addition, the findings show that the effects on social identities
can be optimized when organizations, policy-makers or those implementing the approach ensure that the reference groups used are as relevant to consumers’ social identities as possible and that the norms used with those groups are salient and closely similar to the circumstances or environment of the targeted audience. For example, a driver in a rented car is more likely to open the window instead of using the air-conditioner when he reads a sign indicating that 75% of passengers on this particular car preferred to open the window instead of using air-conditioner to reduce power usage.

The second research reveals through empirical studies that status motives are not only associated with luxury and high status, but they can also be an effective approach to promote environmental conservation. There are several methods that can be used to take advantage of status motives such as consumers’ desire for status. For example, businesses can link their products with high status to the point that the brand becomes a strong indication of the prosocial acts of their owners. This can be done by increasing their price so only wealthy and important individuals can afford to buy, and making the brand a social trend in the society.
Experiment 2 showed that organizations can increase the chances of influencing choices with social motives by making the prosocial acts visible to the public. For instance, selling eco-friendly cars of a well-reputed luxury brand at showrooms or public events or exhibitions, next to other non-green cars. Or using signs or tags to clearly display that donors have contributed to a charity cause. Study 3 concludes the research by adding that increasing the price is a key factor in associating green products with being prosocial. Owning an expensive electric or hybrid car can signify self-sacrifice for the benefit of the environment, compared to owning a conventional fossil-fuel car.
On the other hand, the research also points out that status motives may not always be effective for environmental causes everywhere, because status is always associated with pro-sociality, not environmentalism, and not all cultures and regions have concerns for the environment.

In the End, the goal of the two papers was to investigate methods to motivate people to participate in preserving e environment by practices such as recycling, reducing the use of resources and buying more eco-friendly products. Researchers from the first paper tested using social norms in a hotel to encourage people to reuse their towels. The results of their first experiment showed that using descriptive norm messages was more effective than using standard environmental message. Their second experiment indicated that relating descriptive norms with social category in the immediate surroundings was more efficient than using them in other categories because social identity is more influenced by similarities in situations or environments like classrooms, hotel rooms and so on.

Paper two examined how to influence people to buy more green products using social motives. In the first experiment, researchers compared the desire for green versus non- green products when there was a social motive. The results showed that social motives increased the desire to choose green products because they could signal pro-sociality.
The second experiment tested how social motives influenced people to buy green versus non-green products when shopping in public versus private. According to results, status motives influenced people to buy green products when shopping in public more than when shopping online in private.

In the final experiment, researchers tested how social motives encouraged people to buy green products when they were made more expensive or less expensive than non-green products when shopping in public versus private. The findings revealed that when shopping in public, status motives increased the attractiveness of green products when they were more expensive than non-green products, but when shopping online in private, status motives increased the desire for the luxury non-green products.

Eventually, my perspective is, as more and more business in every sector take part in the green movement and adopt more eco-friendly practices, mainly to save costs and generate more profit, the question they all face is how to shift consumer behavior to a more environmentally-driven mindset so that businesses and consumers work together in saving the environment. The problem of adopting a ‘green behavior’ in the community has existed for years. For example, businesses and policy-makers have been struggling to drive consumers to follow ecological conservation programs and increase demand for eco- friendly products and services. This is due to many factors, such as the lack of environmental awareness and poor understanding of the level of impact of society practices, like production, transportation, and food consumption, on the environment. Another reason could be that consumers underestimate their role in protecting the planet, as they view the individual contribution to be negligible and ineffective compared to the role of the entire community.

Furthermore, these factors, in some cases, the eco-friendly products and services offered on the market are usually more expensive than ordinary products, due to extra costs and low demand, which results in consumer hesitation. An example of such products include organic food. Understanding of the problem by businesses and consumers alike can significantly accelerate the shift towards ‘green behavior’. For businesses, understanding the issue can help in employing techniques to draw more attention to the importance of buying green products and services. Once consumers are fully aware of the importance of their role as one body, demand for green products and services is bound to increase, enabling eco-friendly production on a larger scale, which in turn would help reduce prices and production

Our appeal is for a clean and healthy environment for all humanity.

Even if we can’t directly assist in saving and protecting our beloved Earth or become environmentalists, we still have the choice to contribute by avoiding actions that harm our surroundings. By doing so, we each make a valuable contribution to protecting our environment.

Note: Hope My message finds you well in good health and condition
Have a wonderful day everyone!

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References:

Conservation in Hotels (Paper 1)

Noah J. Goldstein, Robert B Cialdini, and Vladas Griskevicius

2- Going Green to Be Seen: Status, Reputation, and Conspicuous Conservation

(Paper 2)

Vladas Griskevicius, Joshua M. Tybur and Bram van den Bergh

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