Journal Article

Social incentive factors in interventions promoting sustainable behaviors: A meta-analysis

Stenger, Anne, Nguyen-Van, Phu, Tiet, Tuyen

2021

Overview

Based on a meta-analysis, this paper highlights the strength and relevance of several social incentive factors concerning pro-environmental behaviors, including social influence, network factors (like network size, network connection and leadership), trust in others, and trust in institutions. Firstly, our results suggest that social influence is necessary for the emergence of pro-environmental behaviors. More specifically, an internal social influence (i.e., motivating people to change their perceptions and attitudes) is essential to promote pro-environmental behaviors. Secondly, network connection encourages pro-environmental behaviors, meaning that the effectiveness of a conservation policy can be improved if connections among individuals are increased. Finally, trust in institutions can dictate individual behaviors to shape policy design and generate desired policy outcomes.

• Publisher: Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Altruism / Attitudes / Behavior / Biodiversity / Biology and Life Sciences / Climate change / Computer and Information Sciences / Conservation / Data collection / Ecology and Environmental Sciences / Economics and Finance / Energy conservation / Environment and Society / Environmental aspects / Environmental behavior / Environmental policy / Environmental protection / Environmental Sciences / Environmental sustainability / Environmentalism / Evaluation / Health Behavior / Humanities and Social Sciences / Humans / Incentives / Influence / Leadership / Medical ethics / Meta-analysis / Monetary incentives / Monetary policy / Motivation / Networks / Physical Sciences / Research and Analysis Methods / Reward / Science Policy / Social Behavior / Social factors / Social Interaction / Social networks / Social norms / Social organization / Social Sciences / Trust