Efficacy-based and normative interventions for facilitating the diffusion of conservation behavior through social networks

Research suggests that encouraging motivated residents to reach out to others in their social network is an effective strategy for increasing the scale and speed of conservation action adoption. However, little is known about how to effectively encourage large numbers of residents to reach out to others about conservation causes. We examined the influence of normative and efficacy-based messaging at motivating residents to engage in and to encourage others to participate in native plant gardening in their community. To do so, we conducted a field experiment with messages on mailings and tracked native plant vouchers used. Efficacy messages tended to be more effective than normative messages at increasing residents’ willingness to reach out to others to encourage conservation action, as indicated by a several percentage point increase in native plant voucher use by residents’ friends and neighbors. Messages sometimes had different impacts on residents based on past behaviors and perceptions related to native plant gardening. Among these subgroups, efficacy and combined efficacy and norm messages most effectively encouraged individual and collective actions, as indicated by increased voucher usage. Our findings suggest that interventions that build residents’ efficacy for engaging in a conservation behavior and for reaching out to others may be a promising path forward for outreach. However, given our results were significant at a false discovery rate cutoff of 0.25 but not 0.05, more experimental trials are needed to determine the robustness of these trends.     

Optimizing Messaging to Reduce Red Meat Consumption

Red meat production has a range of negative environmental impacts. We sought to characterize the motivations, environmental attitudes and demographics of red meat-eaters, and examine the effect of message framing in reducing future meat consumption. Canadian adult meat-eaters (593) completed a survey and were randomly assigned to one of six message treatments that presented information on the environmental impacts of meat production using frames representing social norms and/or place identity constructs. Taste and quality were the most important motivators for eating meat, while moral/ethical factors were the least. Forty-nine percent of respondents indicated they would reduce red meat intake after exposure to an information only message, while the social norms frame was more effective than others (χ2). Awareness of the environmental effects increased significantly after messaging for all 13 impacts. These findings should assist communicators with designing more effective messaging aimed at encouraging pro-environmental behaviours associated with meat consumption.     

Five lessons to guide more effective biodiversity conservation message framing

Communication and advocacy approaches that influence attitudes and behaviors are key to addressing conservation problems, and the way an issue is framed can affect how people view, judge, and respond to an issue. Responses to conservation interventions can also be influenced by subtle wording changes in statements that may appeal to different values, activate social norms, influence a person's affect or mood, or trigger certain biases, each of which can differently influence the resulting engagement, attitudes, and behavior. We contend that by strategically considering how conservation communications are framed, they can be made more effective with little or no additional cost. Key framing considerations include, emphasizing things that matter to the audience, evoking helpful social norms, reducing psychological distance, leveraging useful biases, and, where practicable, testing messages. These lessons will help communicators think strategically about how to frame messages for greater effect.     

Are mere instructions enough? Evaluation of four types of messaging on community depot recycling

Curbside recycling efforts have made an important contribution to waste containment, but many communities have specific limitations on what products can be recycled within their community bins (e.g., no cartons, styrofoam, soft plastics) and must rely on depots for recycling these other items. These specialty depots typically take the form of local community or large central municipal sites. The purpose of this randomized trial was to examine messages targeting (1) awareness/instructions, (2) utility, (3) affect, and (4) planning upon community and central depot recycling across eight weeks. One hundred and seventy-six community-dwelling residents between the ages of 18–65 years who self-identified as having the potential to improve their depot recycling activities completed baseline recycling measures and then were randomly assigned to one of the four messaging conditions. One hundred and forty-four of these participants subsequently answered follow-up recycling behavior measures four and eight weeks later. Intention to treat analyses showed that depot recycling increased significantly from baseline to four weeks. The effect waned for community recycling while holding for municipal depot recycling at eight weeks. Distance to recycling depot (closer proximity resulted in greater community recycling), access to a car (low access resulted in greater community recycling), and baseline recycling behavior (no prior recycling resulted in greater behavior change) all acted as significant moderators of the effect. There was no time by group interaction among conditions. The findings support the use of basic instructions – as a minimum – for promoting depot recycling efforts and provide evidence that local community depots, in conjunction with municipal depots, are important to increasing recycling behavior.     

基于P2P的网络即时通讯模式

介绍了对P2P网络技术的概念和特点．并对即时通讯工具的广泛应用及其发展中遇到的瓶颈进行了阐述,在综合分析的基础上提出了P2P技术在即时通讯中应用的三种模式：分布式、集中式、混合式．图3,参4．     

Building disaster resilience using social messaging networks: the WeChat community in Houston,Texas, during Hurricane Harvey

Analyses of disaster resilience have focused increasingly on the role of social capital and online social networks in recovery. This study complements this field of work by investigating three key issues. First, it examines how a social messaging application, WeChat, helped individuals to access and to mobilise three types of social capital—bonding, bridging, and linking—during Hurricane Harvey, a Category 4 storm that made landfall in Louisiana and Texas in the United States in August 2017, resulting in significant flooding and loss of life. Second, it pinpoints and assesses quantitatively how individuals' WeChat group usage and social capital influenced their post-disaster well-being. Third, it demonstrates how a minority and immigrant community in Houston, Texas, overcame the disadvantages commonly observed in other disaster research through the utilisation of social media. The findings of this study should aid governmental and community efforts to foster resilience in the face of natural and human-induced hazards.