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Abstract Motivating people to take environmentally friendly action, especially collective actions that promote greater social engagement, is important for addressing environmental issues like biodiversity loss. We conducted an online workshop‐based field experiment to target social‐psychological perceptions to motivate people to plant native plants and encourage others to do the same. To shift these perceptions, we added 13 microinterventions to half the workshops, including normative messaging, public commitment‐making, and providing feedback on the impact of reaching out to others. We used a voucher system to track real‐world behavior by partnering with native plant nurseries. Compared to an information‐only control workshop, our intervention workshops initially increased certain social‐psychological perceptions related to encouraging others to plant native plants. However, they did not change behaviors, or many perceptions, compared to control workshops. Additional exploratory analyses revealed differing patterns of behavioral perceptions 2 months after the workshops. Further research is needed that implements experimental methods and real‐world measures of conservation behavior to evaluate the impacts of theory‐based outreach tactics on collective actions.
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This content will become publicly available on April 1, 2026
An audience segmentation study of native plant gardening behaviors in the United States
Audience segmentation can be used to identify target audiences in environmental public engagement and communication, but few studies have used segmentation to study biodiversity conservation behavior. This study used segmentation to better understand perceptions and behaviors around different types of actions related to native plant gardening. With a United States representative survey (n = 1,200), we measured beliefs and intentions to engage in personal-sphere (i.e., individual), social diffusion (i.e., encouraging others to act), and civic action behavior (e.g., voting). A latent class analysis (LCA) revealed four distinct groups within the population: Disengaged, Potential Adopters, Potential Amplifiers, and Potential Advocates. Each class comprised approximately one-quarter of the United States population. We found that certain groups are more receptive to personal-sphere behavior, while others may be more receptive to social diffusion behavior or civic action behavior. The groups varied by key distinguishing characteristics: perceptions around civic action, previous personal-sphere and social diffusion behavior, and intentions to engage in personal-sphere action. Findings revealed opportunities to create tailored public engagement strategies to engage different groups in urban biodiversity conservation behavior.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2227074
- PAR ID:
- 10611487
- Publisher / Repository:
- Elsevier
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Landscape and Urban Planning
- Volume:
- 256
- Issue:
- C
- ISSN:
- 0169-2046
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 105272
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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