De La Salle University Manila College of Engineering Industrial Engineering Department

A Framework Integrating the Concept of Human Hedonism and the Theory of Planned Behavior in a Socio-Ecological System Design

In partial fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Industrial Engineering

By: Marc Louis C. Perez

Thesis Adviser: Dr. Rosemary Seva

1.1. Background of the Study The issue of sustainability has brought the world to an arms race of developing more efficient technologies, leaving the role of human participation far behind. More particularly, a plethora of research and development efforts are focused on developing technologies to target inefficient production and neglectful consumption without much consideration given as to how the people will learn to adapt to them. As these however may prove to be technically effective, discounting the need for an in-depth understanding of human factors in the sustainability domain resulted to a rebound effect which caused the intended environmental benefit of these technologies not only to leak away, but worse, to be reversed. (Reese, 2007; Berkhout, 2000; Pooley & OConnor, 2000). In line with this, early research endeavors in the field of sustainability have somewhat realized the impact of human factors in addressing the deficiencies of treating technological efforts alone towards achieving sustainability. Looking for instance in the field of

product development, promoting sustainable production and resource consumption have been extended from the technological point of view to the cognitive process or logical thinking of its intended consumers. Mainly, products are being designed not only to be efficient in terms of resource or energy consumption in the production conceptualization phase, but also to incorporate certain cognitive aspects of the people in the products consumption phase (Flemming, 2008 Reese, 2007; Verbeek & Slob 2006). Early efforts include embedding eco-feedback mechanisms to product in order to allow consumers to be informed regarding their energy consumption and hence be able to respond conservatively about it (Abrahamse, 2005; Vollink & Meertens, 2006; McCalley & Midden, 2006). Conversely, other behavior steering approaches such as scripts and

persuasive technology were introduced to foster sustainable user behavior by way of forcing actions in certain directions while confining it to others through specific design characteristics (Jelsma & Knot, 2002; Lilley, 2005). The same is also true when it comes to socio-ecological agendas such as campaigns for recycling and waste segregation. Proposed paradigms in understanding environmental conduct assumes that the behavior of people towards participating in a socio-ecological scheme is highly cognitive and is in itself purely a reasoned action (pragmatic quality). Though these way of thinking provide ways as to how the technological and utilitarian ingredients of sustainability efforts can be bridged to the human domain, result shows that the change towards sustainable user behavior is still futile if not, short-lived (DeVries, 2006). The inadequacy of these proposed methods can be seen on the inability to instill motivation, strong enough, for the people to digress from their old ways and adopt a sustainable behavior. Clearly, the cross-fertilization between sustainability and human behavior has not been achieved yet hence, highlights that an important facet of the relationship might have gone overlooked the human emotional aspect. Several studies show that the main role of emotion is to control and motivate human behavior (Cornelius, 1996; Lattal & Chase, 2003). Since previous researches on designing products and systems focus on steering human behavior towards sustainability in terms of the human cognitive processes (i.e. eco-feedback, scripting and persuasive technology), much potential lies in exploring this area. According to Schifferstein & Desmet (2010), an effective way to lead people to investing their time, effort and money in acquiring a product is by exhorting certain positive emotions from it. In line with this, several researches have emphasized the potential of emotions in affecting the desirability

of a product and hence its chance of being purchased (Seva et al. 2010) and influencing the consumption experience and behavior of the user (Lockton et al., 2010; Jelsma & Knott 2002). Generalizing these concepts nevertheless will lead to the premise that the aspect of human emotion plays a very important role in influencing human behavior. As there have been a number of studies which begun to incorporate emotions in designing products, no studies have incorporated the aspect of emotions in the field of designing socio-ecological systems. 1.1.1. Predictors of Environmental Behavior In the field of exploring how humans are motivated to adopt a socioecological behavior, several studies have utilized the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) (Cordano & Frieze, 2000; Flannery & May, 2000; Sparks & Sheperd, 1992). According to the TRA, intention is the most proximal predictor of an individuals behavior and is composed of two primary rational constructs, attitudes and subjective norms. By definition, attitudes refer to the overall positive or negative evaluation of doing the behavior whereas the Subjective norms pertain to the individuals perception of how other people, important to him/her would evaluate that particular behavior as acceptable or not - perceived social pressure to perform the behavior (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). More particularly, the aforementioned constructs corresponds to the pragmatic aspect or the human rationality in relation to the formation of behavioral intentions.

Figure 1 Theory of Reasoned Action

(Adapted from Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) Although the model had been aged, research shows that predominant proposed paradigms in understanding environmental conduct and behavior still assumes that adapting to a socio-ecological behavior is highly cognitive, reflecting both attitudes and subjective norms (Kok and Siero 1985; Emmet 1990; Taylor and Todd 1995; Kalafatis et al., 1999). The TRA also served as a foundation for the most commonly used behavior model in environmental psychology domain (Nisbet & Gick, 2008; Staats, 2003) known as the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). Proposed by the same proponents, the TPB attended to the shortcomings of TRA by including the concept of Perceived Behavioral Control (PBC) in the equation. Generally, the PBC refers to the beliefs about whether there are sufficient resources and opportunities available to carry out the behavior - otherwise stated as the perception of how easy or difficult it is to perform a given behavior. Ajzen (1991) further argued that PBC may not just be a predictor of intention but may have a direct effect on behavior as well (See Fig.2).

Figure 2 The Theory of Planned Behavior

(Adapted from Ajzen, 1991) To date, there are several theories which extended the tenet of TPB by further incorporating various concepts such as identity constructs, past behavior, and anticipated emotions as a predictor of behavioral intention (Kang et al., 2011; Wong & Mullan, 2009; Danner et al, 2008; Carrus et al., 2008). Nevertheless, studies show that humans do not always act in accord to their intentions and thus leave a theoretical gap between intention and behavior (Collins & Mullan, 2011; Sniehotta et al., 2005). As the TPB shows to be effective in predicting behavior related intentions, it often fall short in the prediction of actual behavior which points to the contention of the emotional processes as a mediating factor in the intention-behavior gap (Mohiyeddini et al., 2009). 1.1.2. Bridging intention and behavior gap - Human Hedonism Influencing human behavior often requires people to overcome barriers such as changing habits and lifestyle. Therefore, the notion that intentions in itself approximate actual behavior change may be too limiting. Current general behavior models focus on the cognitive antecedents of intention which in turn
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directly and solely approximates the behavior. According to

several

environmental psychology proponents however, ecological behavior cannot be considered as the sole result of a human cognitive process or a rational choice, but includes the human emotional aspect as well. (McGaugh 2006; Kals et al., 1999; Vinning 1992). There have been studies which incorporated the concept of emotions in predicting human behavior one of which is the Model of Goal Directed Behavior (MGB). As can be seen in Fig. 3, the MGB encompasses all the principles of TPB with the inclusion of the concept of desire, past behavior and emotions to be more specific, desire directly predicts intention which in turn is predicted by attitudes, subjective norms, PCB and emotions (Carrus et al., 2008). Although the MGB incorporates the concept of emotion in a behavioral prediction model, it is taken in the perspective of being an antecedent to desire and intention which does not, in any sense bridge the gap between intention and behavior.

Figure 3 The Model of Goal-Directed Behavior

(Adapted from Carrus et al., 2008)

The concept of emotions, on the other side of the coin, is also seen as a mediating variable between intention and behavior. Several proponents such as Mohiyedinni et al., (2009) and Zhu & Thagard (2002) have hypothesized that emotions may influence action generation, execution and control. Generally, there are two sides of the human emotional aspect, positive and negative nevertheless, research points out that the concept of intrinsic motivation to influence human behavior towards sustainability is more driven by the hedonic perspective of emotions rather than the negative ones (Magni et al., 2010; Meneses, 2010). Hedonism claims that only pleasure motivates people. (Moore 2008). Moreover, research rooting on the hedonic perspective proposes that individual behavior is strongly driven by the goal of being engaged in activities where in positive emotions can be evoked (Gottschalg and Zollo, 2007; Thong et al., 2006). In line with this, it is argued in this study that positive emotions are the responsible factors in bridging the gap between intention and behavior. A very recent and so far successful attempt in incorporating a hedonic perspective to shape the behavior in the light of a socio-ecological systems is The Fun Theory. In a form of an open-to-all challenge, Volkswagen gathered innovative ideas that illustrate how the simple notion of fun can easily influence the behavior of people for the better. The winning idea of the fun theory award was Kevin Richardsons concept of The Speed Camera Lottery. More particularly, the concept aims to get more people to obey the speed limit by making it fun for the people to do, through a lottery game (Thefuntheory.com, 2010). Currently however, no researches have theoretically touched this area,

highlighting a lack of a consistent framework that addresses the way in which human hedonism influences them to support socio-ecological systems.

1.2. Problem Statement Current literature in the environmental psychology domain focus so much on the antecedents of behavioral intentions, resulting to a limited view as to how intentions can be translated to actual behavior. Such being the case, there is no concrete framework that explores the concept of human hedonism in bridging intention-behavior gap in designing socio-ecological schemes that will encourage people to adopt a sustainable behavior.

1.3. Objectives of the Study This research aims to develop a framework that extends the rather limited view of current behavior models by integrating human hedonism in designing a socio-ecological system towards promoting a sustainable behavior.

The general objective of the study is further divided into more specific ones as follows: a. Develop a system design framework that integrates hedonic emotions with the current behavior and intention predictors in light of influencing people to adopt a sustainable behavior. b. Determine the decision strategy (in terms of the hedonic emotions vs. current antecedents of intention) used in deciding whether or not to adopt a sustainable behavior.

c. Determine particular design attributes of socio-ecological systems that will intensify hedonic emotions evoked by the people so as to adopt a sustainable behavior.

1.4. Statement of the Hypothesis Given the aforementioned objectives, this research has the following hypotheses: H1: Designing a socio-ecological framework which incorporates human hedonism in the current behavior models will close the intention-behavior gap, thus promoting a sustainable behavior. H1a: Hedonism mediates intention and behavior H1b: PBC mediates intention and behavior H2: In adopting a sustainable behavior, the underlying determinants of intentions aspects are downplayed by hedonic emotions. H3: There are certain socio-ecological system attributes that can be designed to evoke hedonic emotions that will lead to the peoples adoption of a sustainable behavior.

Given the discussions above, this study propose a conceptual framework shown in Fig. 4.

Figure 4 Conceptual Framework

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1.5. Theoretical Framework Several researches in the field of human factor engineering and environmental psychology support the development of the hypotheses made in this study. More particularly this research is theoretically based on the concepts of the following authors: Diefenbach & Hassenzahl (2011), Collins & Mullan (2011), Meneses (2010), Volkswagen (2010), Mohiyeddini et al., (2009) and Carrus et al., (2008). See Fig. 5.

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Mohiyeddini, Pauli & Bauer (2009) The role of emotion in bridging the intention-behavior gap: The case of sports participation Emotion as a bridging factor in the intention-behavior gap The Theory of Planned Behavior Attitude Subjective Norms Perceived Behavioral Control

Diefenbach & Hassenzahl (2011) The Dilemma of the Hedonic Appreciated but hard to justify. Hedonic (positive emotions) Pragmatic (Reasoning) as a behavior predictor Hedonic Dilemma (Reasons downplay emotions)

Perez (2011) Meneses (2010) Refuting fear in heuristics and in recycling promotion Positive emotions as a better predictor of behaviors rather than fear A framework integrating the concept of human hedonism and the Theory of Planned Behavior in a socio-ecological system design The Theory of Planned Behavior Attitude Subjective Norms Perceived Behavioral Control Hedonism (Fun) as a mediating variable between intention and behavior

Volkswagen (2010) The Fun Theory Using the notion of fun to change the behavior of the people Carrus, Passafaro, Bonnes (2009) Emotions, habits and rational choices in ecological behaviors: The case of recycling and use of public transportation The Theory of Planned Behavior Attitude Subjective Norms Perceived Behavioral Control Past Behavior (Frequency & Recency) Desire as antecedent of Intentions Emotions as antecedent of Desire 12

Figure 5 Theoretical Framework

1.6. Significance of the Study This research is deemed to be significant to the groups of people discussed below: 1.6.1. Social Community Currently, socio-ecological system involves schemes that require high level of effort from the social community to be able to adapt to them. Such being the case, designing socio-ecological systems with respect to peoples hedonistic traits will help them develop socio-ecological behavior more easily. Furthermore, with an effective socio-ecological system design, the social community will be able to enjoy the benefit of a cleaner and better environment. 1.6.2. Academe Formally coming up with a framework that that integrates the hedonic with current behavior models in designing a socio-ecological system to promote a sustainable behavior will be beneficial to the academic community since no research has explored this specific area. Furthermore, this study could trigger interested minds to further investigate the concept of human emotions in designing not only socioecological systems but other systems as well. 1.6.3. Environmental Agencies of the Government The branch of the government that is responsible for promoting socio-ecological welfare will benefit in the output of this research in terms of being guided in coming up with environmental policies and schemes

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that is effective in influencing the people not only to abide but to enjoy following doing them as well.

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