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Abstract As biodiversity loss and climate change accelerate, more people worldwide are engaging in conservation behaviors to “do their part.” Yet, individual behavior change alone is insufficient for the large‐scale, rapid change needed to address these crises. Relational organizing, which involves individuals reaching out to others in their social network, can enhance the speed and scale of conservation behavior change and address the complex, collective action nature of many conservation problems. However, many people practicing conservation behaviors in their own lives do not engage in relational organizing about conservation issues. Here, we suggest this may be the result of specific social‐psychological factors inhibiting people from reaching out to others. We summarize the evidence and offer a research and practice agenda to prioritize (1) understanding the social‐psychological barriers that prevent relational organizing, and (2) addressing these barriers through targeted outreach interventions to help scale and accelerate community action for conservation.
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This content will become publicly available on November 19, 2026
Impact of messaging treatments on stages of change in relational organizing for climate-friendly plant-based diets
To achieve rapid, widespread voluntary behavior change for climate change mitigation and other pro-social causes, an increasing number of studies have demonstrated the value of relational organizing. Relational organizing involves enlisting motivated individuals to encourage others they know to engage in a desired behavior. We developed messaging interventions that targeted the social-psychological variables associated with participation in relational organizing to promote a climate action, specifically encouraging others to eat a plant-forward diet. We conducted an online experiment with a between-subjects design, testing one intervention (message treatments) that had six levels (five treatments and one control). Of the five treatments, four increased participants’ contemplation of (intentions to engage in) relational organizing: 1) confidence engaging in plant-based eating, 2) supportive social norms for plant-based eating and relational organizing, 3) personal relational organizing aptitude, and 4) perceived relational organizing hypocrisy and self-efficacy. However, these treatments did not increase our outcome measure at the next stage of change (preparation), which is indicative of the numerous contextual variables that can inhibit relational organizing. We discuss the implications of our results for interventions aimed at scaling pro-climate actions such as plant-based eating.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2227074
- PAR ID:
- 10650732
- Editor(s):
- Chan, Hoi-Wing
- Publisher / Repository:
- PLOS
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- PLOS Climate
- Volume:
- 4
- Issue:
- 11
- ISSN:
- 2767-3200
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- e0000753
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- relational organizing messaging experiment climate plant-based diet plant-forward eating
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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