How to Save the World | The Psychology & Science of Environmental Behavior

This is the second part of the conversation with Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin AND the Executive Director of The Institute for Diversity Science, Dr Markus Brauer about what makes up real evidence-driven gamification.  Markus is the social scientist behind a behavior-change game called Cool Choices - a card game that gets workplace employees into groups with the goal of competing around energy and environmental behaviors. Markus gives us an understanding of the theoretical underpinning and real causal mechanisms that drive the psychology behind the kind of gamification that does succeed in our quest for real and measurable change. We explore his paper published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology titled: Making Cool Choices for Sustainability: Testing the effectiveness of a game-based approach to promoting pro-environmental behaviors. * * * How to Save the World is a podcast about the psychology of what gets people to do eco-behaviors and take climate action: Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based teachings you can use to rapidly get more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Sign up for Katie's free behavior and gamification design course at ⁠⁠http://katiepatrick.com⁠⁠ Join Gamify the Planet masterclass training in climate action design for $25/month ⁠⁠http://katiepatrick.com/gamifytheplanet⁠⁠ Get a copy of the book, How to Save the World on Amazon ⁠⁠https://amzn.to/2Z4jivL⁠⁠  Follow Katie on:  Instagram ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/katiepatrickhello/ LinkedIn ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-patrick/

Games sound fun, but do they really work to get people to actually do climate and eco-friendly things? And if so, why do they work?  Today's we’ll be talking with Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin AND the Executive Director of The Institute for Diversity Science, Dr Markus Brauer about what makes up real evidence-driven gamification.  Markus is the social scientist behind a behavior-change game called Cool Choices - a card game that gets workplace employees into groups with a goal of competing around energy and environmental behaviors. Markus gives us an understanding of the theoretical underpinning and real causal mechanisms that drive the psychology behind the kind of gamification that does succeed in our quest for real and measurable change. We explore his paper published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology titled: Making Cool Choices for Sustainability: Testing the effectiveness of a game-based approach to promoting pro-environmental behaviors. * * * How to Save the World is a podcast about the psychology of what gets people to do eco-behaviors and take climate action: Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based teachings you can use to rapidly get more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Sign up for Katie's free behavior and gamification design course at ⁠⁠http://katiepatrick.com⁠⁠ Join Gamify the Planet masterclass training in climate action design for $25/month ⁠⁠http://katiepatrick.com/gamifytheplanet⁠⁠ Get a copy of the book, How to Save the World on Amazon ⁠⁠https://amzn.to/2Z4jivL⁠⁠  Follow Katie on:  Instagram ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/katiepatrickhello/ LinkedIn ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-patrick/

Explore the concept of developing ideas from primary principles and how it leads to successful environmental projects. Discover five primary principles that motivate individuals to take action for the environment. Delve into the connection between utility and pro-environmental behavior. Learn about finding meaning and purpose in environmental and climate work, integrating technology and nature. Understand the role of social connection and beauty in generating great ideas and fostering environmental consciousness.

In this episode, I explore the power of pledges in driving pro-environmental action and behavior. Pledges are seen as commitment devices, where individuals make promises or commitments to themselves or others. We highlight the effectiveness of pledges in engaging people and closing the value action gap. The episode delves into the various forms of pledges, such as written notes, online commitments, or public displays, and discusses the astonishing evidence from behavioral literature on their impact. Pledges can increase engagement in actions by 30% to 70%, making them powerful tools for maintaining eco-friendly behaviors and winning environmental campaigns. * * * How to Save the World is a podcast about the psychology of what gets people to do eco-behaviors and take climate action: Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based teachings you can use to rapidly get more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Sign up for Katie's free behavior and gamification design course at ⁠⁠http://katiepatrick.com⁠⁠ Join my Gamify the Planet masterclass training in climate action design for $25/month ⁠⁠http://katiepatrick.com/gamifytheplanet⁠⁠ Get a copy of the book, How to Save the World on Amazon ⁠⁠https://amzn.to/2Z4jivL⁠⁠  Follow Katie on:  X-Twitter ⁠⁠@katiepatrick⁠⁠ Instagram ⁠⁠@katiepatrickhello⁠⁠ LinkedIn ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-patrick/

In today’s episode, we dive into the surprisingly powerful effect of social norms that seem to almost effortlessly shift environmental behavior. Social norms mean“This is what everyone else is doing” or “Here’s an example of what we want you to emulate.”   Our guest today is research psychologist Dr Alessia Dorigoni from the Neuroscience Consumer Lab at the University of Trento in Italy. Alessia is not just a psychologist through, she’s also a fine artist and behavioral economist specializing in nudges. We explore Alessia’s recent paper titled "Water bottled or tap water? A descriptive-social-norm based intervention to increase a pro-environmental behavior in a restaurant" The type of norms we’ll be exploring how a written norm, in the form of a poster in a restaurant, that said "2/3 PREFER TAP WATER" effectively encouraged people to order less plastic bottled water.  Alessia and I talk about the theory of nudges, the neuroscience of why norms work, and the surprisingly best formats in which to describe the data to have the most psychological influence. Alessia's paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272494423000191 * * * How to Save the World is a podcast about the psychology of what gets people to do eco-behaviors and take climate action: Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based teachings you can use to rapidly get more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Sign up for Katie's free behavior and gamification design course at ⁠⁠http://katiepatrick.com⁠⁠ Join my Gamify the Planet masterclass training in climate action design for $25/month ⁠⁠http://katiepatrick.com/gamifytheplanet⁠⁠ Get a copy of the book, How to Save the World on Amazon ⁠⁠https://amzn.to/2Z4jivL⁠⁠  Follow Katie on:  X-Twitter ⁠⁠@katiepatrick⁠⁠ Instagram ⁠⁠@katiepatrickhello⁠⁠ LinkedIn ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-patrick/

You probably have a new website you're trying to launch, a blog you need to finish, an app you're trying to complete, a presentation you need to give, and several unfinished art projects in your closet. I see you. I know you! In this episode, I share my own personal technique for getting complex things finished and shipped. I call it "short scoping." To "Short scope" is the opposite to "scope creep" or "feature creep" where are ideas get more branches and features as we work on them until they turn into unmanageable, unfinishable, and expensive behemoths. As someone who is afflicted by many ideas, often coming at me at the same time, and who is inspired to work on different things, being able to "short scope" a project to make a chunk of deliverable work is the only reason why anything I do gets out. Without short scoping, my life's work would drown in a molasses of compounding new ideas and intricate feature-creeps dragged to bottom of the sea of unfinished projects. It's simple and it WORKS. Try it out and let me know how it goes! * * * How to Save the World is a podcast about the psychology of what gets people to do eco-behaviors and take climate action: Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based teachings you can use to rapidly get more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Sign up for Katie's free behavior and gamification design course at ⁠⁠http://katiepatrick.com⁠⁠ Join my Gamify the Planet masterclass training in climate action design for $25/month ⁠⁠http://katiepatrick.com/gamifytheplanet⁠⁠ Get a copy of the book, How to Save the World on Amazon ⁠⁠https://amzn.to/2Z4jivL⁠⁠  Follow Katie on:  X-Twitter ⁠⁠@katiepatrick⁠⁠ Instagram ⁠⁠@katiepatrickhello⁠⁠ LinkedIn ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-patrick/

Have you considered the power that lies in heavily niching down by geography? As in, go hyper local, and then geographically niche some more. In this episode, I share my thoughts on the mistakes I've observed by social change projects diluting their impact by spreading too broad. You might get followers by casting a broad net in the beginning, but you won't get the serious and measurable change you want to see from real humans doing real things *off* the internet. The keys to change lie in starting by seeing what you can change in your immediate location, and then once you've done it, try and replicate it. That is how social movements that built into tipping points are built. * * * How to Save the World is a podcast about the psychology of what gets people to do eco-behaviors and take climate action: Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based teachings you can use to rapidly get more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Sign up for Katie's free behavior and gamification design course at ⁠⁠http://katiepatrick.com⁠⁠ Join my Gamify the Planet masterclass training in climate action design for $25/month ⁠⁠http://katiepatrick.com/gamifytheplanet⁠⁠ Get a copy of the book, How to Save the World on Amazon ⁠⁠https://amzn.to/2Z4jivL⁠⁠  Follow Katie on:  Twitter ⁠⁠@katiepatrick⁠⁠ Instagram ⁠⁠@katiepatrickhello⁠⁠ LinkedIn ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-patrick/

Our guest today is Professor Emeritus Bas Verplaken from the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath. He’s very much an elder in the study of attitude and habits in relation to health and human behavior and he has also been the editor of the book, The Psychology of Habits.  We discuss "Habit Discontinuity Hypothesis" which is a phenomenon whereby people are more apt to adopt new behaviors when their daily lives are disrupted, meaning some kind of discontinuity occurs, like moving house or moving job.  Bas and I talk about the importance of habits in addressing sustainability through the perspective that habits are unconscious and immediate behaviors we do without thinking about too much versus behaviors that take thought and consideration. To understand habits is to also understand that kind of “behavioral muscle memory,” how it is formed, and how to break them. * * * How to Save the World is a podcast about the psychology of what gets people to do eco-behaviors and take climate action: Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based teachings you can use to rapidly get more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Sign up for Katie's free behavior and gamification design course at ⁠http://katiepatrick.com⁠ Join my Gamify the Planet masterclass training in climate action design for $25/month ⁠http://katiepatrick.com/gamifytheplanet⁠ Get a copy of the book, How to Save the World on Amazon ⁠https://amzn.to/2Z4jivL⁠  Follow Katie on:  Twitter ⁠@katiepatrick⁠ Instagram ⁠@katiepatrickhello⁠ LinkedIn ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-patrick/

The podcast discusses the importance of validating and supporting individual eco-friendly behaviors and highlights the need for positive reinforcement. It explores the process of individual action leading to broader systems change, emphasizing starting small and gradually increasing impact.

This episode challenges the debate between individual and system actions in promoting pro-environmental behavior. It explores the five types of individual actions that can bring about change and their role in driving systems change. It also discusses the power of small actions and social influence in creating tipping points, and emphasizes the relationship between individual action and systems change. The podcast provides evidence-based teachings to help listeners adopt environmental campaigns and take climate action.