Abstract
This chapter recommends using social marketing strategies to promote sustainable behavior. The chapter builds on the basic notion that social animals devote much of their time and energy to both influencing others and being influenced by others. In today’s environment, this means that both offline and online, people influence each other in a variety of ways. Agents interested in promoting sustainable behavior can employ this constant social exchange to encourage people to behave in a sustainable manner. The chapter details a variety of such influence tactics, many borrowed from the for-profit world and from current social theories.
Global environmental problems are caused by human activity. Solving these problems, though, requires more than well-meaning efforts to change. It also requires understanding – of which activities are most responsible, what causes them, and the most effective ways to change them. This is a task for a science of human – environment interactions …, and psychology can make an indispensable contribution.
P. Stern
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Goldsmith, E.B., Goldsmith, R.E., Bacille, T. (2015). Social Influence and Sustainable Behavior. In: Social Influence and Sustainable Consumption. International Series on Consumer Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20738-4_8
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