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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. 

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.