Open Access#LetsUnlitterUK: A demonstration and evaluation of the Behavior Change Wheel methodology
Author(s) -
Julia Kolodko,
Kelly Ann Schmidtke,
Daniel Read,
Ivo Vlaev
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0259747
Subject(s) - psychological intervention , intervention (counseling) , behavior change methods , behavior change , behaviour change , set (abstract data type) , applied psychology , psychology , theory of change , randomized controlled trial , computer science , social psychology , medicine , sociology , anthropology , programming language , surgery , psychiatry
The Behavior Change Wheel is the most comprehensive and practically useful methodology available for developing behavior change interventions. The current article demonstrates how it can be applied to optimize pro-environmental behaviors and, in so doing, give interventionists access to a rigorous set of theories and techniques for systematically developing pro-environmental interventions. Section 1 describes the development of an intervention to increase people’s intentions to post anti-littering messages on social media. Study 2 describes the development and evaluation of an intervention to increase people’s actual anti-littering posts. Both evaluations are randomized controlled trials that compare the effectiveness of the developed intervention with interventions less informed by the Wheel. We found interventions completely informed by the Wheel to be more effective than interventions less (or not at all) informed by the Wheel. The discussion explores how the Behavior Change Wheel methodology can be used to design future pro-environment interventions.