Testing an Integrative Model of the Social-Psychological Drivers of Participation in Relational Organizing

Relational organizing is a promising approach for achieving rapid, widespread community action for environmental conservation and other pro-social outcomes. Relational organizing involves enlisting motivated volunteers to share information about and encourage others they know to engage in a desired behavior. It is effective because it harnesses the power of people’s social connections, which people are generally motivated to maintain, to help spread new information and create new social norms.

Although a growing number of studies have documented the effectiveness of relational organizing, a key challenge to implementing this approach is scaling it up, or encouraging a larger number of individuals to reach out to others they know. Studies find that most people who are committed to participating in a conservation behavior in their personal lives are reluctant to reach out to others about this behavior.

Preliminary research suggests this may be a result of specific social-psychological barriers that prevent people from reaching out to others, such as their fear of being judged negatively. This project examines these barriers through public surveys, and develops and experimentally tests messaging approaches for reducing these barriers to encourage greater participation in relational organizing.

To do so, the researchers partner with an international NGO, local government, and private industry to focus on a context with immense environmental, health, and animal welfare impacts: relational organizing to reduce meat consumption. The team develops practical handbooks and webinars summarizing the findings to inform the efforts of numerous organizations seeking to harness the power of relational organizing for pro-social behavior.

Scaling up the relational organizing approach requires understanding, synthesizing, and developing interventions to address the most salient factors driving people’s willingness to reach out to others. The researchers advance a theoretical model of the social-psychological drivers of participation in relational organizing. The model proposes that participation in relational organizing is influenced by: 1) personal norms about reaching out to others; 2) activist social identity; 3) attitudes towards and past engagement in the target behavior; 4) perceptions of others’ beliefs about the issue and about reaching out to others about the issue; and 5) beliefs about the efficacy of relational organizing.

To test this model, the team first conducts surveys to examine the explanatory power of the model and identify the social-psychological variables that are most associated with participation in relational organizing for reducing meat consumption. The results of the surveys inform the development of messaging interventions to address the most important social-psychological factors.

The team tests the effectiveness of the messaging interventions at enhancing relational organizing for reducing meat consumption first through online experiments and then through field experiments in collaboration with an international NGO, local government, and private sector partners. In the field experiments, they track vouchers for meatless meals that respondents can give to others as indicators of effective relational organizing.

The research addresses three gaps in the literature on pro-environmental and pro-social behavior. First, most studies have focused on motivating personal-sphere behaviors, rather than more collective behaviors that involve engaging with others. The team addresses this gap through the focus on motivating individuals to reach out to others to facilitate relational organizing.

Second, there is a lack of understanding of the diversity and relative importance of social-psychological factors influencing whether people reach out to others in their social network. This gap is addressed through the development and testing of the theoretical model. Finally, few studies have tested the impacts of theory-based interventions on real-world indicators of conservation behavior, particularly on collective behaviors related to biodiversity conservation and food choices.

This project addresses this gap through a field experiment that implements a real-world relational organizing campaign.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.