Why finger wagging doesn’t work

Reducing waste, tackling overconsumption and moving to a circular economy are within our reach. We all know what needs to happen, so why won’t people just do it already? It turns out getting people to change their behaviour is a complex process (who knew!), but it can be done – and with a carrot rather than a stick.

For Victoria to transition to a circular economy, we need people to do things differently. We need new behaviours to replace old behaviours: repairing and reusing what we already have, buying second-hand, buying things made from recycled materials and – most importantly – buying less.

To achieve this fundamental shift in how we think about consumption, waste, and sustainability, one of the most powerful tools at our disposal is behaviour change campaigns: considering the psychology of human behaviour to help shift community habits and attitudes for the long term.

Jennifer Macklin is a Senior Research Fellow with BehaviourWorks at Monash University, a research organisation within the Monash Sustainable Development Institute. Jennifer says behaviour change has been used positively in Australia for decades and has tackled many social and health problems – seat belts for example.

‘Wearing our seat belt might seem obvious today but it just wasn’t done 60 or 70 years ago. Then a decision was made that this was really important for our safety and health, and so a raft of behaviour change interventions were introduced over decades.’

Now of course, everyone wears seat belts.

Sustainability Victoria’s statewide behaviour change campaigns have reached millions of Victorians on behalf of the Victorian government since 2021, through advertising, public relations, social media, digital, stakeholder engagement, partnerships, events and activations.

You might have seen ‘Small Acts, Big Impact’, designed to make it easier for all Victorians to reduce waste and recycle more, using simple actions at home.

One of these actions is keeping plastic bags out of recycling. Why? Plastic bags contaminate recycling. Consider that 3% of Victorians (210,000 people) saw the campaign and removed their recycling from plastic bags for the first time, meaning 104 tonnes of recyclable material was saved from landfill.

The case for investing in behaviour change is clear, but it’s a challenging and complex process. It’s not as easy as just telling the community what to do and expecting them to do it.

Here are three top tips on how to change behaviour for the better:

1. Avoid finger wagging

Elijah Lyons, who leads campaign strategy and production at Sustainability Victoria, explains that people tend to resist being told what to do, especially if the message comes across as judgmental or patronising.

‘With any behaviour change message, if you don’t explain why and how a different approach is needed, wagging your finger and telling people they have to change their behaviour will not be effective,’ Elijah says.

‘Research suggests that when the audience is spoken to like a naughty child, they often react negatively – such as resisting or minimising the importance of the message or going out of their way to avoid it altogether.’

He says behaviour change campaigns should be based on research, to help us understand why people act the way they do and what stops them from adopting the behaviours we want to promote.

Sustainability Victoria’s campaigns, for example, are underpinned by extensive social research, including the annual State of Sustainability report and tracking of community attitudes and knowledge gaps.

2. Be specific about what it is that you want people to do, rather than focusing on the behaviour you don't want

Jennifer from BehaviourWorks says that often we focus on communicating the problem and what we don't want people to do. ‘But actually, what we need to do is flip it around and say, “OK, what do we want them to do instead?”’, explains Jen.

‘For example, if we want to reduce waste going to landfill, there are many ways that we could ask people to do that. We could ask people to buy durable products that last longer. We could ask people to borrow instead of buy. We could ask people to buy second hand so that we're extending the life of something else.

‘My best advice is to pick one of those desired behaviours to focus on at a time – maximum of two.’

3. Community momentum can motivate behaviour change.

Luke Rogers, behaviour change specialist at Sustainability Victoria, says that many factors influence an individual’s behaviour, such as the environment they are in, their attitudes, and the social norms around them. Luke’s top tip is to showcase the bahaviour you want to see happen and visibly and widely promote it, for example, on your social media channels.

‘This is known as “leveraging social norms”,’ explains Luke. ‘Showing that sustainable behaviours are being performed by others in our communities, and are that they are socially accepted, can create a ripple effect.’

Find out more

• Small acts, big impact
• State of Sustainability research
• Register for Going Circular to stay updated on the release of new research and behaviour change initiatives