How using our brains will help save the planet

The world is facing some serious problems. The financial crisis, the climate crisis, the ongoing food crisis… All of these have huge personal, social and economic costs. But the other common denominator is human behaviour. By altering how people travel, how they spend money, or even how many times they boil the kettle each day, we can start to make real changes. And as a communications agency, we’re in a great position to do just that.

Easily said. But there’s quite an art to changing behaviour. Screaming out the calorie content to Joe as he guzzles his second Big Mac, or hurling abuse at Jane as she causally weaves through a gauntlet of charity collectors isn’t going to make a huge impact. Equally, campaigns simply asking you to donate £5 a month, or posters demanding nicotine addicts to STOP SMOKING NOW are going to fall pretty flat. So, how do you solve the problem?

That’s where psychology comes in. In the 1950s, Carl Hovland and his colleagues found that certain types of communication are better at persuading us than others. For example, we’re more likely to change our behaviour if we think the message isn’t directly intended to manipulate us – which is why screaming, heckling and outright demands rarely work. But we’re also more likely to be persuaded if we’re targeted correctly, and by the right kinds of people. Experts are more persuasive than non-experts (think uniform-clad dentists advertising toothpaste), people are more receptive when distracted, and a powerful linguistic style is more effective than a flat one.

This early ‘who, what, whom’ model still underlies a large chunk of contemporary communications. But a few agencies have recently started to tap into a slightly more sophisticated strain of psychology. Much-loved by social psychologists, attitude-behaviour theories attempt to move beyond the idea that we’re just ‘passive recipients’ of information, and recognise that the most powerful behaviour change comes when we’re actively involved in it. There are many, many varieties of these theories – from those aimed at different social contexts, to those tailored to different ages and gender. Of all of them though, it’s worth mentioning two.

Festinger’s ‘Cognitive Dissonance Theory’ is one of the most discussed theories in the history of psychology, and focuses on the idea that we seek harmony between our attitudes and behaviour. Any discrepancy between the two will cause extreme discomfort, and if drawn attention to, will motivate us to bring one into line with the other. Supported by a huge body of evidence, this idea has been harnessed by several behaviour change campaigns, with pretty impressive results. Most notably, the Department for Transport’s drink driving campaign Moment of Doubt focused on the inconsistency between the desire for another drink and a set of believable, relevant consequences (a criminal record, driving ban, relationship damage and so on). By moving past gruesome images of car crashes, the campaign managed to stimulate the first drop in drink driving deaths for over six years – from 560 in 2006 to 410 in 2007.

Then there’s Ajzen’s ‘Theory of Planned Behaviour’. According to this theory, if people evaluate a suggested change in behaviour as positive; if they think others want them to perform this behaviour; and if they perceive that they have control over the behaviour, then they are more likely to do it. This reasoning forms part of the cross-governmental Obesity Team’s Change4Life campaign. By using various media channels to present healthy eating as a desirable goal that would please friends and family, and by using case studies to demonstrate its achievability, the six-phase marketing plan attempts to help UK families improve their long-term health. And although it’s early days, the results look positive so far.

So, what to make of it all? It’s generally agreed that we need to take a holistic approach to behaviour change. Whilst Festinger’s and Ajzen’s theories are insightful, they’ve been highly debated, contended and revised. Ideally, we’d tailor our communications according to a very specific theory. But their sheer volume and questionable efficacy suggests we should probably use them to guide our messages, rather than dictate them. This is precisely the approach suggested by the Government Communications Network. By identifying the behaviour we’re attempting to challenge, and by mapping out its various cognitive, social and environmental influences, we can start to build a ‘robust model of communication’ that will inform the strategy for any piece of messaging or campaign.

The above examples provide a taster of just how useful attitude-behaviour theories can be in driving communications. By embedding these theories in the heart of our work, we can generate the tools needed for effective, enduring behaviour change. This, in turn, means we have a shot at persuading people to live a little more sustainably, or even use their fair share of water. And it also means that we can get to work on tackling some of the world’s most serious problems, before it’s too late.