Behavioural Science
Is the climate-friendly or conservation action that you are promoting...
Offering no direct incentive for the individual or no immediate reward or positive feedback to them?
More costly or time consuming than the alternative?
Creating positive outcomes that are often not directly visible unless multiple people perform it?
Requiring multiple, smaller behaviours making it even more complex?
If any of the above is true, then you need to include behavioural science to facilitate this change.
What is Behavioural Science?
Behavioural science studies when and why individuals engage in specific behaviours by experimentally examining the impact of factors such as conscious thoughts, motivation, social influences, contextual effects, and habits.
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Behavioural Science draws on insights from several subjects, including:
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Anthropology
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Behavioural economics
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Cognitive psychology
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Consumer behaviour
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Social psychology
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Sociology
In order to understand the full complexity of human behaviour, some behavioural scientists combine theories, concepts, and methodologies across these disciplines helping to give a complete picture of human behaviour.
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Behavioural science is particularly useful when traditional approaches of providing information or using incentives (such as punishment or reward) are not effective or not feasible. This is particularly the case when considering pro-environmental behaviours.
We find that using behavioural science in our projects leads to more effective interventions because it provides:
A human
focus
Putting an understanding of human behaviour and motivation at the core of the work. Climate change and environmental protection is a people problem not an animal or plant one!
A new way of thinking
Changing your thinking is important. It is easy to get stuck in the same way of thinking about a problem, approaching it from the same angle. Different research and frameworks can encourage a fresh mindset.
More creative solutions
Behavioural science can give you a spark of innovation or creativity by making you think about how to implement solutions in a new way.
A scientific approach
Behavioural science is after all a science. It provides a scientific approach that helps to isolate a target behaviour, research it, change it with behavioural insights, and measure the impact in a rigorous way.
CARING TREE: A Bespoke Approach To Help You Promote Pro-Environmental Behaviour
To help you combat climate change and species extinction, we have developed a framework called C.A.R.I.N.G T.R.E.E, based on decades of behavioural science research focusing on social mobilisation and collective action. This framework allows climate actors and conservationists like you to turn people’s awareness into actions. By integrating the framework with the work and experience of local stakeholders, you can drive change.
The CARING TREE framework is complemented by our bespoke training, designed to teach you the behavioural science principles most relevant to climate and conservation work – guiding you to maximise the impact of your work by applying behavioural science.
The CARING Approach details the six psychological principles you can draw upon to make sure your behaviour change efforts go with the grain of how humans really behave.
