Further Analysis
Prompts in general seem to be an effective way to promote behavioral changes and can often lead to their desired outcomes (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985) (Bekker, Cumming, Osborne, Bruining, McClean, Leland; 2010). However, they do not always lead to behavior changes, and the effectiveness of prompts actually depends on a lot of factors, where some of these factors are more impactful than others (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985). Some of these factors include, age, sex, group size, proximity of desired task, specificity of the prompts, what the actual task is, and whether or not they are phrased in a positive or negative manner (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985). These factors can be especially relevant when discussing pro-environmental prompts and pro-environmental prompts can make a significant difference in reducing energy consumption and preventing waste.
The effectiveness of pro-environmental prompts often depends on whether they are phrased in a positive or negative manner (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985). Positively worded prompts often are more effective than negatively worded prompts (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985). It was found that even using mildly negative worded prompts such as “Please don’t …”, often resulted in a diminished response to the prompt (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985). A possible explanation for this is “Brehm’s theory of psychological reactance” which states that people have a psychological freedom that they seek to maintain, and when that is possibly threatened by commanding or negative prompts prohibiting behaviors, a person will seek to maintain their psychological freedom by either ignoring the prompt or actually acting contrary to the intent of the prompt (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985). Especially when dealing with environmental prompts, since the environment is an emotional and complex subject. It is important to phrase the prompts in a positive manner as to fully maximize the effectiveness of the prompts (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985).
Another factor in determining the effectiveness of prompts is if they are specific or general (McKenzie-Mohr, 2011) (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985). This may be a factor that is less impactful on prompts in general as it may not always apply. The specificity of prompts will make an impact if the target audience has uncertainties or is unclear about either the desired action or the perception of the situation at hand (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985). Specifically worded prompts are much more effective than generally worded prompts when the target audience is lacking knowledge, they provide more information on the situation (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985). However, on the other hand if the target audience is completely aware of the present situation, then there are no significant differences (weak correlation) in effectiveness between specifically worded prompts or generally worded prompts (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985). In general though, it is thought that prompts should target specific actions and should try to avoid being non-explicit as that is general practice (McKenzie-Mohr, 2011). Specificity is a key aspect in the effectiveness of prompts but is often not as impactful as some of the other factors (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985).
The proximity of the desired behavior of the prompt is also an important key factor in determining the effectiveness of the prompts if not the most important. How close the behavior you are trying to implement is to the actual prompt has a high correlation to the prompt being effective or not (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985). Let’s face it, people inherently are lazy and have lazy tendencies, and it might not be a matter of the whether a person would like to implement your behavior or not, they might just not want to go out of their way to do it, and it might be a deciding factor in whether or not the behavior is implemented (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985). To make a prompt more effective, the action you want implemented should be close and convenient for your target audience, and if the action is inconvenient, this will drastically decrease the chances of the prompts desired outcome occurring (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985).
Another key aspect in determining the effectiveness of prompts is taking in account your target audience and possible demographic variables that may apply. When trying to communicate, especially when communicating about an environmental topic, it is important to consider who you’re prompt is addressing as certain demographic variables may affect the effectiveness of the prompt (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985). One variable to consider is group size as it was found that as the group size goes up, the likelihood of a person participating in that environmentally friendly behavior goes down and that individuals and small groups have a higher chance of participating in that pro-environment behavior (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985). This may be caused by deindividuation (as a group size grows, the individual will identify themselves with the group rather than with themselves, so their ideals become weakened) or perhaps the social responsibility for helping the environment diffuses in a larger group (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985). Other demographic variables that may alter the effectiveness of an environmentally friendly prompts are age and sex. In this particular study it was found that males are less likely to participate in pro-environment behaviors , and that prompts have a greater effectiveness on older people rather than younger people (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985). Male and female participation differs in varying contextual situations (Eves, Olander; 2011).
Prompts can be very effective in reducing energy consumption (Bekker, Cumming, Osborne, Bruining, McClean, Leland; 2010). As other studies have found, prompts can be a very effective way in reducing energy consumption. As in Bekker’s research, they placed 9 large prompts at 89 locations through a dormitory and all of the prompts promoted reducing energy consumption (Bekker, Cumming, Osborne, Bruining, McClean, Leland; 2010). They placed smaller prompts near electrical appliances that used energy, to make their prompts more effective in reducing energy consumption of each student (Bekker, Cumming, Osborne, Bruining, McClean, Leland; 2010). At the end of their observations, they found that the prompts had effectively caused a decrease in energy consumption and also a reduction in the cost of electric bills (Bekker, Cumming, Osborne, Bruining, McClean, Leland; 2010). There were no monetary rewards in place or other incentives, the prompts by themselves promoted environmentally-friendly change and another acquisition was in reduced cost to the students (Bekker, Cumming, Osborne, Bruining, McClean, Leland; 2010).
Prompts can be very effective in preventing waste (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985). Other research demonstrates that prompts can be very effective in preventing waste (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985). Durdan’s research was interested in seeing how the implementation of prompts would affect students bringing over their trays in the cafeteria, and also how they would affect students littering in the cafeteria (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985). They implemented various types of prompts in an effort to reduce waste to all different types of people. They took observations before, during and after the prompts were implemented and they came to the final conclusion that prompts were effective in preventing waste and achieving their pro-environmental goals. They were able to observe a dramatic decrease in the amount of people littering while the prompts were implemented. However, when they were removed, the desired environmentally friendly acts were lessened greatly. In some observations returned to normal conditions, which further illustrates the importance of prompts (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985).
The actual content of prompts can be very powerful and impactful as another factor that influences behaviour change (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985) (Bekker, Cumming, Osborne, Bruining, McClean, Leland; 2010). Prompts can be more impactful than a monetary incentive in certain cases and can often lead to a longer lasting effect depending on the circumstances (Bekker, Cumming, Osborne, Bruining, McClean, Leland; 2010). Prompts can even be combined with some feedback which can make them even more effective (Bekker, Cumming, Osborne, Bruining, McClean, Leland; 2010). Making prompts powerful and impactful is an important part of the prompts as it will not only help change the specific individual’s behavior in the short run, but can provide long lasting effects that create an intrinsic positive growth within that individual (van Nieuw-Amerongen, Kremers, deVries, Kok; 2011). Prompts are also a very cheap medium to promote your desired action relative to the other mediums (van Nieuw-Amerongen, Kremers, deVries, Kok; 2011). These aspects further proves the importance of prompts.
Another key aspect to prompts is that they help remind people when they forget, so they act as a constant reminder to others about the action you want implemented (van Nieuw-Amerongen, Kremers, deVries, Kok; 2011) (McKenzie-Mohr, 2011). In several of our studies, they would study their intended action before the prompts implementation, during and then after (Bekker, Cumming, Osborne, Bruining, McClean, Leland; 2010) (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985) (van Nieuw-Amerongen, Kremers, deVries, Kok; 2011). They all saw significant improvement during the implementation of the prompts. However, after they removed the prompts, the actions were still improved but they saw a significant decrease in the desired implemented action. Prompts are also great because they make people aware of the intended action without requiring a lot of concentration and attention (van Nieuw-Amerongen, Kremers, deVries, Kok; 2011). So they are effective without forcing the observer to pay a lot of attention to them which people generally don't like to do. Prompts are also effective in promoting change of ones daily routine which additionally helps prove their effectiveness in promoting behavioral change (van Nieuw-Amerongen, Kremers, deVries, Kok; 2011).
It is important to remember that prompts will not be effective all of the time. There are certain qualities that prompts can possess that can make them either very or not very effective (Durdan, Reeder, Hecht; 1985). However, in most cases pro-environmental prompts and prompts in general do have a strong correlation in causing the desired outcome to occur (Bekker, Cumming, Osborne, Bruining, McClean, Leland; 2010).
Bekker, M. J., Cumming, T. D., Osborne, N. K. P., Bruining, A. M., McClean, J. I., & Leland Jr, L. S. (2010). Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 43(2), 327-331.
Durdan, C. A., Reeder, G. D., & Hecht, P. R. (1985). Litter in a university cafeteria: Demographic data and the use of prompts as an intervention strategy. Environment and Behavior, 17(3), 387-404.
McKenzie-Mohr, D. (2000). Fostering sustainable behavior through community-based social marketing. American Psychologist, 55(5), 531.
Olander, E. K., & Eves, F. F. (2011). Effectiveness and cost of two stair-climbing interventions—Less is more. American Journal of Health Promotion, 25(4), 231-236.
Van Nieuw-Amerongen, M., Kremers, S., de Vries, N., & Kok, G. (2011). The use of prompts, increased accessibility, visibility, and aesthetics of the stairwell to promote stair use in a university building. Environment & Behavior, 43(1), 131-139.