Habits to Save our Habitat: Using the Psychology of Habits to Promote Sustainability

Public awareness and concern about climate and environmental issues have grown dramatically in the United States and around the world. Yet this shift in attitudes has not been accompanied by similar increases in eco-friendly behaviors. We propose that this attitude–behavior gap is partly driven by the difficulty of changing unsustainable habits. Governments and businesses can reduce this gap through interventions that draw on insights from research into the psychology of habits and behavioral economics. First, they can reduce or add friction, making it easier for people to engage in eco-friendly actions and making it harder to continue environmentally damaging practices. Second, they can set up action cues—prompts that trigger pro-environment actions—and deliver these cues where and when they will have the biggest impact. Finally, they can provide psychologically informed incentives and disincentives that steer people toward environmentally beneficial actions. We also describe how even initially unpopular policies can become accepted through habitual repetition. In these ways, habit psychology represents a promising addition to the policymaker’s toolbox.