A National Strategy to Reduce Food Waste at the Consumer Level (2020) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix E: Research on Behavioral Change from Other Domains
Appendix E: Research on Behavioral Change from Other Domains
Pages 259-288
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The committee gathered 406 peer-reviewed and published articles that were classified as systematic reviews, narrative reviews, and meta-analyses about behavior change in these six domains and reviewed their abstracts for applicability to the committee's task. From this set, 46 articles were selected to be reviewed in full; details of the literature search can be found in Appendix B
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One systematic review of research on diet change mentioned that a total of 83 theories of behavior change had been identified (Samdal et al., 2017)
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and for intervention types (e.g., social comparison, feedback, information, appeals, engagement, choice architecture/nudges)
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. Another meta-analysis testing behavioral interventions to promote household action on climate change categorized interventions by type as information, appeals, engagement, social comparison, and choice architecture (Nisa et al., 2019)
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, semireflective (i.e., heuristics, simple cues) , and automatic processing routes to categorize interventions on water conservation behavior within households.
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. For example, one meta-analysis on household recycling behaviors found that individual and contextual factors often predicted intention to recycle, but they did not observe recycling behavior (Geiger et al., 2019)
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. Studies of waste prevention find that while both genders contribute equally to municipal solid waste production, females are more willing to recycle or participate in reduction behaviors, and men are more willing to pay for waste reduction (Ma and Hipel, 2016)
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For example, motivational tools -- such as altered attitudes toward outcomes, personal norms, agency or perceived control, and social norms -- have turned out to be the most successful predictors and influencers of proenvironmental and weight management behaviors (Li et al., 2019; Miafodzyeva and Brandt, 2013; Samdal et al., 2017)
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. Contextual Factors Affect Opportunities to Initiate and Sustain Behaviors Several meta-analyses of household recycling interventions found that contextual factors were seldom considered (Geiger et al., 2019; Varotto and Spagnolli, 2017)
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, which can be both positive and negative. For example, as waste reduction has become relatively normative in most developed countries, social norms have become insignificant influencers in any context (Whitmarsh et al., 2018)
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examined whether interventions focused on a single behavior (e.g., physical activity or diet) were more or
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They also explored the differential effects of these interventions on weight outcomes. Notably, the analysis found that while single behavior interventions were more effective at improving the targeted behavior, multiple behavior interventions produced greater weight loss even though they appeared to be less effective at changing the individual behaviors.
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conducted a random-effects meta-analysis of 36 studies (1990-2015) reporting 70 psychological strategies to promote household recycling in the home environment: they found environmental alterations to be the second most effective strategy, after social modeling.
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performed a systematic review of causal studies and compared four behavioral economic intervention types on energy conservation: social comparison, commitment devices, goal setting, and labeling. Only 1 study of 24 found a "boomerang effect." However, this individual study also noted that this boomerang effect could be eliminated by adding an injunctive message (Schultz et al., 2007)
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. In the research on residential solid waste management, studies have examined the effectiveness of fees to reduce residential solid waste disposal.
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. Semireflective Interventions for Long-Term Behavior Change Social norms, framing, and tailoring re categorized as semireflective a interventions because they represent an individual's attempt to use simple cues or rules about which choices should be made (Koop et al., 2019)
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. The results of the analysis found that, compared with control groups, social influence approaches were effective and that greater effect sizes were found with the block leader, public commitment, and modeling approaches and smaller effect sizes with group and socially comparative feedback and social norms in information and feedback provision approaches.
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(2019) , in a meta-analysis of 83 randomized controlled trials to explore the most effective mechanisms for promoting household action on climate change, found social comparisons to be the second most effective approach for behavior change after choice architecture (i.e., nudges)
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For unhealthy eating, plan formulation was the only significant moderator variable and implementation intention interventions had low efficacy regardless of intervention design. The variable plan formulation indicated that when these plans were designed only to avoid the unhealthy food, they were less effective than when they were planned with an alternate positive action in mind.
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Several studies in the sample reported improvements in general but not specific energy consumption and conservation knowledge. Interestingly, the games appeared to have led to improvements in self-reported and actual energy conservation behavior in the short term.
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Targeting Multiple Behaviors Using Multiple Approaches Based on their analyses, several authors concluded that the best approach to behavior change was a comprehensive approach that combined behavioral interventions with other approaches such as partnerships with influential organizations, social marketing programs, economic incentives, regulations, or technology (Cox et al., 2010; Koop et al., 2019; Niebylski et al., 2015; Nisa et al., 2019; Sharp et al., 2010; Thomson and Ravia, 2011)
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(2019) on proenvironmental behavior spillover, the authors found that positive spillover was most likely when interventions target intrinsic motivation.
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(2011) conducted an interesting systematic review examining the effect of physical activity and dietary intervention trials on behavior maintenance (n = 29)
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SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY Researchers in the six domains have made suggestions for further study on behavioral change, covering a wide range of topics: habits, interventions on contextual factors, understanding why interventions work, equity, the generalizability of interventions, the persistence of intervention effects over time, the dearth of effectiveness studies in comparison with efficacy studies, better study design to track pathways, the need for more cross-context understanding, evaluation studies, and cost-effectiveness studies. Not enough is known about habits.
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Many meta-analyses and systematic reviews found that relatively few studies included measures of behavioral antecedents, such as social norms, attitudes, or knowledge, and thus could not explain why an intervention worked or what it changed, only whether it worked (Abrahamse and Steg, 2013; Abrahamse et al., 2005)
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. Most meta-analyses and systematic reviews mentioned the need for a better understanding of the particular pathways of change.
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2011. Systematic review of maintenance of behavior change following physical activity and dietary interventions.
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2017. Effective behaviour change techniques for physical activity and healthy eating in overweight and obese adults; systematic review and meta-regression analyses.
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2011. A systematic review of behavioral interventions to promote intake of fruit and vegetables.
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