In the face of continued environmental degradation, policy makers need to accelerate public uptake of pro-environmental behaviours. Promoting behaviours which catalyse the adoption of other similar behaviours through the spillover effect has been proposed as a potential solution. This requires understanding which behaviours are seen as similar and what criteria are used to identify behavioural similarity. We used a sorting procedure with 32 householders in Melbourne, Australia, to investigate the perceived similarity of household water conservation behaviours and identify the underlying constructs used to distinguish between similar and dissimilar behaviours. Location was the primary attribute used to define behavioural similarity, specifically whether behaviours took place indoors or outdoors. Participants also distinguished between curtailment, efficiency and maintenance-type behaviours. Our findings provide empirical support for existing theoretical behaviour taxonomies. The results could inform design of future water-saving campaigns to promote catalytic behaviours, which leverage off similar, existing behaviours for effective behaviour change results.

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This study examines the relationships between visitor satisfaction and place attachment. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to test competing models of visitor satisfaction and place attachment represented as a (i) unidimensional, (ii) first-order, and (iii) second-order factor. Data were collected from a sample of 525 visitors at the Bruce Peninsula National Park, in the state of Ontario, Canada. Results indicate visitor satisfaction is a better predictor of place attachment as a second-order construct. Findings are discussed with respect to their applied and theoretical relevance. Practical applications of the study include strategies aimed at achieving optimum visitor satisfaction and promoting place attachment in national parks.

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The conservation profession is increasingly seeking effective ways to reduce societal impact on biodiversity, including through targeted behavior change interventions. Multiple conservation behavior change programs exist, but there is also great uncertainty regarding which behaviors are most strategic to target. Behavioral prioritization is a tool that has been used effectively to support behavior change decision‐making in other environmental disciplines and more recently for a small sub‐set of biodiversity behavior change challenges. Here, we use behavioral prioritization to identify individual behaviors that could be modified to achieve biodiversity benefits in the state of Victoria, Australia. We use an adapted nominal group technique method to identify potential biodiversity behaviors and, for each behavior, estimate the corresponding plasticity (or capacity for change) and positive impact on biodiversity outcomes. We elicited 27 behaviors that individuals could undertake to benefit or reduce their negative impact on biodiversity. This list was then used to prioritize 10 behaviors as determined by their likely effect(s) on biodiversity, plasticity, and current prevalence in Victoria. We take a first step in outlining a list of behaviors that can direct Victorian decision‐makers toward increasing positive and reducing negative impacts of society on biodiversity, guide motivated individuals to reduce their own biodiversity footprint, and more broadly, develop a behavior change research agenda for behaviors most likely to benefit biodiversity.

Public administrators rely on written communications to send information to citizens and stakeholders, and they are among the heaviest users of the postal service. Behavioral science research has identified several techniques that public administrators can use to increase compliance with written requests and, in turn, increase effectiveness. Currently, however, many written communications from government bodies are not written in a manner that utilizes these techniques. It remains an ongoing challenge for public administrators to identify, understand, and use these techniques in the written communications sent by their organizations. This article presents a framework capturing seven prominent techniques in a simple mnemonic—INSPIRE—that is already being used by several government bodies in Australia. It also provides practical examples of how to use each technique and demonstrates that using these techniques could result in large aggregate improvements in effectiveness and socially desirable outcomes of public administrators' written communications.

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