Chapter 15. Social Psychology: "3R the Bottle!"
15.1
You are a freshman and just finished your first week of class. You are settled into your dorm room, have purchased the textbooks for your classes, and now want to join a club or start an extracurricular activity. You believe that getting involved on campus will help you fit in and adjust to the new environment. All week you have been given flyers and pamphlets about different student organizations around campus. As you sit down at your desk to review some of them, you notice a flyer on your roommate's desk.
Asch, S. E. (1955). Opinions and social pressure. Scientific American, 193, 31–35.
Celebrities promote recycling on T-shirts. Retrieved from http://wardrobeadvice.com/celebrities-promote-recyling-on-t-shirts/
D’Alessandro, N. (2014, April 7). 22 Facts about plastic pollution (and 10 things we can do about it). Eco Watch. Obtained from http://www.ecowatch.com/22-facts-about-plastic-pollution-and-10-things-we-can-do-about-it-1881885971.html
GeoGarage (2012, June 20). Global call to stop plastic pollution presented at Rio Earth Summit. Retrieved from http://blog.geogarage.com/2012/06/global-call-to-stop-plastic-pollution.html
Lerche, J. (no date). How is saving plastic bottles helping the earth? Retrieved from http://homeguides.sfgate.com/saving-plastic-bottles-helping-earth-79229.html
Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 19, 123–205.
Recycle symbol-reduce plastic bottles. Explore waste plastic, van plastic, and more! Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/548876273306063170/
Warwickshire Community Recycling. Retrieved from http://www.changeagents.org.uk/warwickshire-community-recycling-social-enterprise
15.2
The elaboration likelihood model proposes that persuasion depends on the way people think about an argument, and it can occur via one of two pathways. With the central route to persuasion, the focus is on the content of the message, and thinking critically about it. With the peripheral route, the focus is on “extramessage factors” such as the credibility or attractiveness of the source . There is little critical thinking involved in the peripheral route, and the commitment to persuasion is rather low.
Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 19, 123–205.
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It is now Wednesday and you’re at the 3R the Bottle! club meeting. There are about 15 other students there, as well as pizza and soda (in aluminum cans, not plastic bottles). The group discusses plastic pollution, why it is an issue, and potential remedies to the problem. The club officers hand out member applications to everyone present and ask them to complete the application before leaving the meeting. You look around and see that everyone in the room is filling out the application and turning it in to the club officers. You decide to do the same, even though you wonder if membership to this club would be a good use of your time.
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15.4
Social psychologists have studied conformity extensively. In a classic experiment by Solomon Asch (1907–1996), college-student participants were asked to sit at a table with six other people, all of whom were confederates working for Asch . The participants were told to look at two cards. The first card had one vertical line on it, the standard line, and the second card had three vertical lines of different lengths, marked 1, 2, and 3.
Asch, S. E. (1955). Opinions and social pressure. Scientific American, 193, 31–35.
After looking at the two cards, the group was instructed to announce, one at a time going around the table, which of the three lines was closest in length to the standard line. In the first two rounds, everybody agreed about which line matched the standard. In the third round, however, the first five people (all confederates) offered what was clearly the wrong answer. In about 37% of these trials, participants went along with the group and provided the incorrect answer. Additionally, 76% of participants conformed and gave the wrong answer at least once. This study has been replicated in various cultures, yielding similar results.
15.5
You have been an active member of 3R the Bottle! for about three months now. You’ve been asked to prepare a poster for a demonstration the club has planned. The plan is to march across campus, holding signs while chanting “3R the Bottle!” The club hopes to make others on campus aware of plastic bottle pollution and teach them how to recycle old plastic bottles.
You need to decide how you want your poster for the demonstration to look. Is it possible to take advantage of both routes of persuasion simultaneously? For each item listed below, identify if it would go with the central or peripheral route of persuasion.
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| Green background on the poster | 6JRxhBpc8ZV23dsGrtKGjIcRdSBfplRc1tdebVwkycX7+vhnpEDrcA== |
| White background on the poster | e0nqb3TVK6upE9YFw3hN9ID//Og6wTBoIMgGuwOKeDWa7akNVVFY2A== |
| Plastic pollution statistics | e0nqb3TVK6upE9YFw3hN9ID//Og6wTBoIMgGuwOKeDWa7akNVVFY2A== |
| Image of plastic bottles | 6JRxhBpc8ZV23dsGrtKGjIcRdSBfplRc1tdebVwkycX7+vhnpEDrcA== |
| Large letters that read “3R the Bottle!” in white in the center | 6JRxhBpc8ZV23dsGrtKGjIcRdSBfplRc1tdebVwkycX7+vhnpEDrcA== |
| Information on how to recycle plastic bottles | e0nqb3TVK6upE9YFw3hN9ID//Og6wTBoIMgGuwOKeDWa7akNVVFY2A== |
| Picture of a celebrity recycling | 6JRxhBpc8ZV23dsGrtKGjIcRdSBfplRc1tdebVwkycX7+vhnpEDrcA== |
| Picture of other college students recycling | 6JRxhBpc8ZV23dsGrtKGjIcRdSBfplRc1tdebVwkycX7+vhnpEDrcA== |
| Information on what happens to unrecycled plastic bottles | e0nqb3TVK6upE9YFw3hN9ID//Og6wTBoIMgGuwOKeDWa7akNVVFY2A== |
| Pictures of unrecycled plastic bottles | e0nqb3TVK6upE9YFw3hN9ID//Og6wTBoIMgGuwOKeDWa7akNVVFY2A== |
15.6
If you take the peripheral route to persuasion when making your poster, the end result would be similar to this.
Poster of 3 R the bottle organization. The background is a linear down gradient from white to green. There is a title of the organization and a picture of three plastic bottles positioned as a recycle symbol at the top. Below there are photos of happy environmental activists in the park on a sunny day and Cameron Diaz with Ashton Kutcher visiting MTV's 'TRL' studios in Times Square in 2008.
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15.7
If you take the central route to persuasion when making your poster, the end result would be similar to this.
Poster of 3R the bottle organization. The background is a blue with a plastic bottle floating in the water. There is text below the title. Plastic bottles are convenient! Most enter the municipal solid waste stream instead of being recycled. Plastic bottles go to landfills or incinerators, where their petroleum and natural gases go to waste. Recycling plastic products from recycled material requires less energy than making new plastic from raw material. Greenhouse gas production from recycling plastic bottles is less than the emissions released from making new plastics. Each top of recycled PET bottles saves 1.5 tons of CO2 emissions. Recycling plastic bottles helps the planet by decreasing:
- Gas used in making plastic bottles.
- Oil used in making plastic bottles.
- Greenhouse gas emissions.
- Ground and water pollution.
- Volume of municipal waste.
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15.8
You, along with other club members, have made arrangements to speak in various classrooms across campus to bring awareness to the cause and educate students and faculty. Essentially, your goal is to persuade students to use reusable water bottles rather than plastic bottles.
SARAH KAUSS: A S'well is a fashionable water bottle that keeps drinks cold for 24 hours and hot for 12 hours. It's the first hydration fashion accessory. I'm Sarah Kauss. I'm the founder and CEO of S'well.
I founded S'well five years ago. I did a lot of research, and I found that the reason that people were using plastic water bottles was really out of convenience. So my goal with S'well was really to convert the non-converted-- to try to get people to use a reusable water bottle because it looked better or it worked better. One of the mantras I've been working on is to try to work on the business and not in the business.
KATIE GARBIS: S'well's branding is what really resonates with the customer. The style matched with the function is what people really love. The price point was definitely very difficult in the beginning. It was hard for our stores and our buyers to understand why the bottle costs what it did.
But once they understand that we're really leading with a style footprint and our charity partner, they understood why it needed to cost what it did. We've always partnered with water charities. Right now it's UNICEF, where we support the Tap Project.
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It is now the end of the academic year and you have been busy! You completed your freshman classes and became involved on campus. You joined the 3R the Bottle! club and participated in their meetings, activities, and events. You even recruited about ten new members yourself! Now you are an avid proponent of recycling. You recycle everything and encourage your friends and family to do the same. This is somewhat different than your passive attitude at the beginning of the academic year, when you had not given much thought to plastic pollution.
The attitudes you hold are strongly influenced by nurture. They develop through experiences, interactions with others, and exposure to social media, television, and other communication outlets. We adopt attitudes through learning processes such as classical conditioning and observational learning.