Correcting misperceptions about trends and norms to address weak collective action – Experimental evidence from a recycling program

Fuhrmann-Riebel, Hanna, D'Exelle, Ben ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9332-5223, Lopez Vargas, Kristian, Tonke, Sebastian and Verschoor, Arjan (2024) Correcting misperceptions about trends and norms to address weak collective action – Experimental evidence from a recycling program. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 128. ISSN 0095-0696

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Abstract

Finding ways to encourage collective action in contexts where only a minority adopts the desired behavior is central to solving many of today’s global environmental problems. We study how correcting people’s beliefs about social norms and behavioral trends encourages collective action in a setting where the desired behavior is not yet prevalent. In a field experiment, we test whether low sign-up rates for a recycling program in urban Peru can be increased by providing information (1) that most people regard participation in the program as important, i.e., on the “injunctive norm”, (2) on an increasing recent trend in sign-up rates. We find that the effectiveness of the treatments depends on people’s prior beliefs: Correcting inaccurate beliefs increases sign-up decisions significantly among people who either substantially underestimate the injunctive norm or who underestimate the positive trend. As this sub-group of people is in the minority in our set-up, we do not observe statistically significant average treatment effects. We further find that the effects of the treatments increase in the level of underestimation. Our evidence demonstrates that belief updating can be used effectively to encourage collective action where it is weak as long as a meaningful number of people underestimates the relevant trends and norms.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Funding information: This research was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), and the University of East Anglia, UK (UEA GCRF Rapid Response Fund).
Uncontrolled Keywords:	belief updating,collective action,recycling,social norms,economics and econometrics,management, monitoring, policy and law ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2000/2002
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Global Development (formerly School of International Development)
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Sciences Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Behavioural Economics Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Behavioural and Experimental Development Economics Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Environment, Resources and Conflict Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Gender and Development Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Impact Evaluation University of East Anglia Schools > Faculty of Science > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	02 Sep 2024 12:30
Last Modified:	25 Sep 2024 18:04
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/96416
DOI:	10.1016/j.jeem.2024.103046

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