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Weathercocks & Signposts HomeThis is a featured page

Weathercocks & Signposts Home - Weathercocks & SignpostsThis site provides a forum for debating, developing or contesting, the arguments presented in the WWF-UK report "Weathercocks and signposts: The environment movement at a crossroads". The Executive Summary and Full Report can both be downloaded at the WWF-UK Strategies for Change pages. The great thing about a wiki site like this is that visitors can easily start their own discussion threads. I've posted a couple below, to kick things off, but please start your own on the things that you feel are most important.


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swingdog A straw man? 0 Jan 19 2009, 6:18 AM EST by swingdog
Thread started: Jan 19 2009, 6:18 AM EST  Watch
To be honest, I found the evidence quoted in the report for people resting on their laurels pretty thin. Having said that, I'd agree it is a danger and so caution should be built into any project engaging people in behaviour change. It also reinforces the need for people going through a behaviour change project to develop or be linked into support mechanisms after their participation ends in that particular intervention so they may continue a journey.

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MIke_Nye the importance of playing to lifestyle as well as identity 0 Jun 9 2008, 11:39 AM EDT by MIke_Nye
Thread started: Jun 9 2008, 11:39 AM EDT  Watch
Sorry to post back to back Tom, but I just reread some of your conclusions and I had to comment on this point. You write:

"For a more difficult behavioural change like this, appeal must be made to more intrinsic motivations or a
person’s self identity; for example, external regulations (which might include emerging social expectations about conscientious and agreeable behaviour) must be integrated into a person’s sense of self, typically in the form of important personal values. Thus, a person may come to feel that “taking care of the environment is an integral part of my life”."

Spot on. But you could substitute 'lifestyle' for 'life' and this point becomes even stronger. Anthony Giddens argues that a lifestyle (functionally everyday doings) is largely indistinguishable from the self identity in modern society. One reinforces the other in a 'reflexive' cycle. Much of what we do that impacts the environment in a significant way stems from routine, taken-for-granted behaviours that are enacted in the course of everyday life. Thus, the culprit is not only conspicuous consumption, but also its more sinister, 'inconspicuous' cousin. What we need to get to is a situation in which 'citizens' feel that "taking care of the environment is an integral part of both my identity AND my everyday doings."

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MIke_Nye There's still an important gap between values and behaviour 0 Jun 9 2008, 11:01 AM EDT by MIke_Nye
Thread started: Jun 9 2008, 11:01 AM EDT  Watch
I think this report is well structured and I applaud the WWF for critically engaging with the social/ commercial marketing strategies which seem to be so en vogue at the moment. The focus on identity is crucial in an era when we are pressured to construct who we are by consuming more and more stuff.

However, I disagree with the attempt to reconstruct what most of us in the field call the value action gap as an attitude-action gap. Expressed values might predict behaviour more strongly than expressed attitudes, but there is still an important gap between values and behaviour. Our lives are filled with contradictions between our behaviour and even our most deeply held values. One need look no further than the queue for confession at the local Catholic church for evidence of the value action gap.

Part of the problem is a lack of self discipline and a willingness to adhere to our values, even when short term self-interest beckons otherwise. If most rational people hold broadly pro-environmental (or at least compatible) values, then perhaps it is the lack of the overarching value of self discipline which is at the root of the environmental crisis.
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