Summary of the impact

Professionals in the third sector have changed the key messages of their campaigns as a result of research from Cardiff University. In this research it was shown that people were more likely to be eco-friendly when campaigns appealed to their concern for the welfare of others, rather than financial savings. The findings have stimulated ongoing debate among eco-campaigners and a wider range of professionals in the third sector, government, the national press and online publications. Leading international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) such as Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Oxfam have formed the Common Cause initiative to improve their communication practices and this has led to changes in campaigning strategy.

Underpinning research

Before 2009, campaigns promoting eco-friendly behaviour often assumed that citizens could be encouraged to engage in green behaviour by arguing that eco-friendly action was in their own interests, for example by saving them money or gaining them status. Charities and NGOs were unaware of the benefits of emphasising values other than personal, material gains.

Ambition vs. philanthropy

For more than a decade, Greg Maio (Lecturer in Social Psychology from 1997 to Professor since 2004) and his research team at Cardiff University's School of Psychology have been conducting experiments on the psychology of values. Building on promising results from earlier ESRC-funded projects linking values to emotion and behaviour,^{3.5, 3.6} they conducted a series of experiments between 2005 and 2009 in which they examined the effects of values on how people behave.

In one study the researchers asked participants to sort words from a list. One group was asked to pick out words like "ambitious" and "successful," while a second group was asked to find words like "forgiving" and "honest." Both groups were then asked to complete a puzzle and to say whether they would help with further research for free. Those who had been asked to find words linked to ambition became better at solving the puzzle, but more importantly they were less likely to offer help. The findings and subsequent replications were published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.^3.1

This research suggested that, counter to assumptions underpinning campaigning work, an emphasis on benefits like money or status is not the best way to encourage behaviour change. Between 2009 and 2011, Maio's team specifically tested this idea in relation to `green' behaviour. In one set of experiments, participants who were asked to think about financial rewards for car-sharing subsequently recycled their waste less than participants who thought about the environmental benefits of car-sharing. Emphasising self-interest rather than the environment resulted in less recycling — a green behaviour that was not even mentioned to participants during the experiment. The results of these experiments were published in Nature Climate Change,^3.2 and pre-publication presentations of this work led to invited blog contributions on the role of values on two NGO websites.^{3.3, 3.4}

References to the research

Note: Cardiff researchers in bold.

Key funding sources

5. Maio, G. R., & Haddock, G. (2003-2005). Implicit and Explicit bases of values: Implications for behaviour change. Economic and Social Research Council (RES-000-22-0519). £46,890. Graded: "Outstanding". See http://www.esrc.ac.uk/my-esrc/grants/RES-000-22-0519/read.

6. Tapper, K., Maio, G. R., Haddock, G., & Lewis, M. (2009-2012). Lifestyle change: Values and volition. Economic and Social Research Council (RES-062-23-1529). £424,490. See
http://www.esrc.ac.uk/my-esrc/grants/RES-062-23-1529/read

Details of the impact

`Adding value' to environmental campaigning

The experiments conducted by Maio's team showed that environmental campaigns that seek to encourage greener behaviour by appealing to self-interest run the risk of backfiring, and that they are more likely to be effective if they appeal to altruistic values.

The findings of Maio's research were brought to the attention of campaign professionals at WWF by an American psychologist (Prof. Tim Kasser, Knox College). Maio was then invited to explain his work to NGOs (esp. WWF and Scope), campaign professionals and practitioners through contributions to key publications, workshops and blog contributions, the most important of which are highlighted below.

Establishment of Common Cause

Perhaps most significantly, the research helped to provide impetus for a project called Common Cause for Nature, which is now a network comprising people around the globe (in excess of 1100 Twitter followers, 600 Facebook likes), organisations in seven principal nations (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, South Africa, Sweden, UK), three sponsor NGOs (Oxfam, Public Interest Research Centre, and WWF-UK), and many other NGOs that have contributed financially or in kind (e.g., Friends of the Earth, Scope). With help from Maio and other academics, Common Cause produced a guide to disseminate the evidence of values-based communication to diverse public, commercial, and third-sector groups; the Cardiff evidence is cited frequently in the section "How We Use Values",^5.1 and this guide has been downloaded more than 7000 times.^5.2

The influence of the Cardiff research is also documented in the full report, Common Cause: The case for working with our cultural values.^5.3 Section 2.4 of this publication describes the Cardiff experiments in detail and cites the research as evidence that it may be counter-productive to attempt to motivate behaviour that addresses societal problems by using strategies that activate values related to self-interest (p. 34).

New campaigning focus

Through Common Cause, NGOs and environmental organisations have re-configured their environmental campaigns. The Change Strategist for WWF-UK says that the Cardiff research has "directly informed WWF's work on Earthbook, and [led to] a change in the way that Waste Watch campaigns on recycling. In the case of Waste Watch's work on recycling, for example, it has led to a move away from a focus on information provision, and towards the engagement of audiences through appeal to self-transcendence values (through, for example, making concerns about community more salient)... it has also led to the initiation of a wide range of enquiries that are likely to influence future campaigns and communications."^5.4 An extended discussion of the implications of the Cardiff research, written by the same commentator, can be found in an article in Nature Climate Change.^5.5

Global policy re-think

These ideas have also stimulated policy debates on the environment with government (especially the Scottish and Welsh Assemblies), diverse NGOs and the general public through a number of practice and policy workshops, many of which are documented in an independent impact assessment by PIER Logistics.^5.6 This assessment involved interviewing 10 prominent stakeholders, including the Welsh and Scottish Assemblies, environmental NGOs, and independent research and strategy consultancies. The interviews yielded ample evidence that Maio's research has influenced approaches to government policy and to campaigning. For example, with respect to policy, a Senior Policy Officer for WWF Scotland noted that Maio's research has "gone into the Scottish government's strategy for meeting its climate change targets." With respect to campaigning, a Principal Research Officer with the Scottish Government stated that Maio's research has had "a profound effect on Scottish government ... the way we communicate about climate-change behaviours," while the Director of Waste Watch noted that the research "had proven powerful in getting NGOs to rethink the market/consumer approach to consciousness raising."

Public debate

According to the Director of the Public Interest Research Centre, Maio's participation in Common Cause workshops across the UK has helped to make campaigners in the third sector and in the public sector more mindful of the role of values: "It's clear that delegates are more persuaded by hearing the evidence first-hand from scientists than through an intermediary. As a result, campaigners and professionals in the third sector and public sector have become much more mindful of the values that they engage in their campaigns and projects."^5.7

The Common Cause website,^5.2 set up by the sponsoring NGOs in July 2011, also plays a prominent role as a public discussion forum on the topic of values-led communication. It contains relevant readings, audio and video (including a Tedx talk citing Maio's research and a brief illustration of the evidence by Maio). As documented by the PIER Logistics report,^5.6 the Common Cause organisation has become a key independent vehicle for the international impact of Maio's research "in for instance, Sweden, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, Brussels" (p. 7). Its international footprint is evident with over 4484 visits per month to its website in the past year, and 40% from overseas.^5.7 The report also notes that, through Common Cause, the implications of Maio's research for environmental campaigning have stimulated public debate via national media interest in the UK, in newspapers such as The Guardian and Wired. For example, a feature article by George Monbiot drew directly on research conducted by Maio and others and in doing so referenced the Common Cause report.^5.8

Sources to corroborate the impact

1. Common Cause Handbook. http://valuesandframes.org/handbook/. Download data under http://valuesandframes.org/learn/. Confirms the contribution of Maio to the Handbook (p. 4) and to the corpus of evidence (see pp. 18, 26, 27, 58; Refs 17 [erratum 16 in bibliography], 18, 38-40, 49, 50, 77), as well as the high readership. [Handbook saved as pdf on 17.1.12 and available on request from the HEI]
2. Main site: http://valuesandframes.org/. Website (column on the right-hand side) confirms download statistics for the Common Cause Handbook, which was aided by Maio and other academics (see source 5.3). Video presentation of Maio discussing his research under
   http://valuesandframes.org/event/common-cause-workshop/, with link to Tedx talk citing Maio's research (right column) or directly stored at http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/The-Conscience-Industry-Tom-Cro;search%3ATom%20Crompton; [Main site saved as pdf on 18.7.13 and available on request from the HEI]
3. Crompton, T. (2010). Common Cause: The case for working with our cultural values.
   http://assets.wwf.org.uk/downloads/common_cause_report.pdf. Section 2.4 of this publication describes the Cardiff experiments in detail and cites the research as evidence against motivating behaviour to tackle societal problems by using strategies that activate values related to self-interest (p. 34). [Saved as pdf on 21.9.10 and available on request from the HEI]
4. Statement from Change Strategist, World Wildlife Foundation. Confirms that the Cardiff research changed NGO approaches to communication, for example, by directly informing WWF's work on Earthbook and the way that Waste Watch campaigns on recycling.
5. Crompton, T. (2011). Values matter. Nature Climate Change, 1, 276-277.
   http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v1/n6/full/nclimate1196.html?WT.ec_id=NCLIMATE-201109". Article in new premier international journal on climate change independently attests to the relevance of the Cardiff research for environmental behavior change. [Saved as pdf on 3.5.13 and available on request from the HEI]
6. Watermeyer, R. (2013). Changing how campaigns tackle environmental degradation. PIER Logistics Impact Reconnaissance Report. Independent research audit confirms impact among user-communities, discussion in online news media, and global reach, through a series of interviews with stakeholders, web links to articles, and Google analytic data. [Available on http://psych.cf.ac.uk/via/news_events/, "Encouraging Impact Report from PIER Logistics"] [Saved as pdf on 18.7.13 and available on request from the HEI]
7. Statement from Director of Public Interest Research Centre (http://www.pirc.info/about/). Confirms that Maio's presentations at workshops have helped make campaigners in the third sector and public sector more mindful of the values that they engage in their campaigns and projects.
8. An example article from The Guardian can be found here:
   http://www.monbiot.com/2010/10/11/the-values-of-everything/. [Saved as pdf on 13.9.13 and available on request from HEI]

All publications and evidence available on request from the HEI.