| Abstract: | It is often stated that social pressures to conform to the norm can help stimulate some individuals into recycling. Whilst this can be intuitively accepted by most people, there have been few scientific studies to show if and how these normative influences can make any significant impact on recycling behaviour within a community. Normative influences, however, are not directly measurable quantities. Their presence may only be supposed either: (1) by showing that models of the expected effects are consistent with observed behaviours; or (2) by questioning individuals on their motivation for recycling. This paper explores both approaches. Measured recycling performance indicators have been examined for evidence that non-chance behaviour is occurring. Results show that if natural normative influence is occurring, its measurable effects are likely to be small and substantially masked by natural random variation. The effects themselves serve more to increase recycling frequency than to increase absolute levels of participation. Simulation studies, based on a new model of normative influence, show that increased overall weight recovery may be achieved, from a recycling scheme, through management interventions to stimulate normative influences. This is, however, at the expense of substantially more pick-ups being required to collect the extra weight. The simulation results are consistent with the hypothesis that there needs to be a certain threshold level of participants within a locality before the normative influences are triggered. |
