The Psychology of Norms and Norms of Sustainability

The School of Sustainability is hosting Taylor Davis, from Purdue University, as part of a series of research seminars that bring together faculty and students engaged in sustainability research to present and discuss their work.

The sustainability movement is ultimately a change in cultural values, or norms. Thus, the basic goal, psychologically speaking, is to motivate people to follow norms of sustainability. There are two basic ways to do this, based on two types of motivation for following norms. Sometimes we follow norms out of intrinsic motivation, because we genuinely care about doing the right thing. But often we follow norms out of instrumental motivation: we’re just trying to gain approval from others, or avoid being punished. The two motives can work in tandem, but are separate sources of motivation, which can be harnessed independently for behavioral change. To do so, however, different strategies are needed, using different types of interventions. In practice, though only the Instrumentalist Strategy is being pursued with much force. Here I describe and defend the overlooked alternative, which I call the Internalization Strategy.