It's what you do and where you do it: Perceived similarity in household water saving behaviours

Abstract

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.

Behavioral prediction of environmentally oriented anticonsumption and consumption: A multilevel study of five Eurobarometer surveys

“…Although rich and relevant to track European citizens’ climate change oriented action over time, the behavioral indicators available for analysis in this study were limited by design of the Eurobarometer surveys. For instance, the limitations arising from the datasets did not allow testing the role of additional and well‐established behavioral classifications, such as behavioral setting (Kneebone et al, ; Littleford et al, ) or behavioral difficulty (Van der Werff et al, ). Future research should ideally account for a greater variety of environmentally oriented EOA and EOC behaviors and behavioral domains.…”

“…For instance, recent evidence indicates that positive spillovers are more likely among environmental behaviors that require the same resources—that is, monetary versus nonmonetary (Margetts & Kashima, ). Also, evidence from a study on water saving behavior suggests that people tend to group behaviors first attending to their physical location, followed by the efficiency‐investment versus curtailment perspective, and third by the effort required for action (Kneebone, Fielding, & Smith, ). The suggested pivotal role of behavioral similarity (or the extent to which different behaviors are perceived as similar) in environmental spillovers has led researchers to consider grouping criteria, such as the setting, cost or difficulty, frequency, and domain of behavior (Margetts & Kashima, ; Thøgersen, ).…”

“…However, the accumulated evidence to date often conflicts with this claim (Lauren, Smith, Louis, & Dean, ). Other theories hint that intra‐setting environmental behaviors are more likely to be perceived as congruent (Kneebone et al, ), thus enhancing the likelihood for positive spillovers. Consistent with this, the perceived congruence of inter‐setting environmental behaviors tends to be much lower (Thøgersen, ).…”

“…The differentiation between EOC (i.e., purchase or consumption of more environmentally friendly products) and EOA actions (i.e., environmentally oriented reduction, avoidance or rejections of consumption; García‐de‐Frutos et al, ; Ortega‐Egea & García‐de‐Frutos, ) is analogous to the well‐established categorization of investment/efficiency versus curtailment environmental actions (Stern, ). Yet, the latter distinction usually restricts to behaviors from two specific consumption (saving) domains: energy (e.g., McCoy & Lyons, ) and water (e.g., Kneebone et al, ). By contrast, the EOA versus EOC classification applies across many different domains to cover a broad array of environmental behaviors.…”

A qualitative examination of urban vs rural sustainable consumption behaviours of energy and water consumers in the emerging Egyptian market

“…Thus, the research context was chosen to extend extant research to a new market and compare results. On the other hand, minimal previous researches were found to have investigated whether conservation behaviours may lead to purchase behaviours, although it was highlighted in Gilg et al (2005), Han and Sean (2018), Hara et al (2015) and Kneebone et al (2018) that one of the behaviours can act as a proxy for the other.…”