I agree with Dagon that recycling is a great example—of the opposite of your point.
Consumer/household recycling is actually bad. It’s a great example of imposing a well-meaning measure, via regulation, that turns out to not only do no good but actually to do harm.
What can we learn from this? Perhaps that the reason “moral suasion” wasn’t convincing, in this case, is because it was a lie.
You say:
Telling people the right thing to do doesn’t work. Even if they believe you, or understand what you are saying, most people will not change their behavior simply because it’s the right thing to do.
The recycling example does not show this. What it seems to show is that if you lie to people, and tell them (stridently and accusingly) that the right thing is this-and-such, but those people can see perfectly well that the right thing is not what you say, then they may tell you that they believe you—mostly to get you to go away—but they will keep doing what they think is right… which is, of course, not the thing you told them.
So it’s not that “most people will not change their behavior simply because it’s the right thing to do”. It’s just that most people will not change their behavior simply because you tell them that it’s the right thing to do—especially when what you’re saying is not true, and they know it.
But, of course, if you force them to go along with what you’re saying, even though they are not the least bit convinced—well, people do follow incentives.
I’m confused by your claim that it doesn’t help, and would like some evidence other than Tierney’s motivated reasoning, who claims that recycling is bad because it’s annoying, that the impact is small, and that we try to recycle more than is economically optimal. That last one is probably true, and the first is subjective, and most people don’t seem to mind.
The claim that resource costs are low, so it’s a bad idea ignores the fact that they are low because they mostly come from countries with no pollution restrictions, and almost all don’t have GHG priced in.
I agree with Dagon that recycling is a great example—of the opposite of your point.
Consumer/household recycling is actually bad. It’s a great example of imposing a well-meaning measure, via regulation, that turns out to not only do no good but actually to do harm.
What can we learn from this? Perhaps that the reason “moral suasion” wasn’t convincing, in this case, is because it was a lie.
You say:
The recycling example does not show this. What it seems to show is that if you lie to people, and tell them (stridently and accusingly) that the right thing is this-and-such, but those people can see perfectly well that the right thing is not what you say, then they may tell you that they believe you—mostly to get you to go away—but they will keep doing what they think is right… which is, of course, not the thing you told them.
So it’s not that “most people will not change their behavior simply because it’s the right thing to do”. It’s just that most people will not change their behavior simply because you tell them that it’s the right thing to do—especially when what you’re saying is not true, and they know it.
But, of course, if you force them to go along with what you’re saying, even though they are not the least bit convinced—well, people do follow incentives.
I’m confused by your claim that it doesn’t help, and would like some evidence other than Tierney’s motivated reasoning, who claims that recycling is bad because it’s annoying, that the impact is small, and that we try to recycle more than is economically optimal. That last one is probably true, and the first is subjective, and most people don’t seem to mind.
But he says that excluding most recycling, the impacts are minor. Yes, excluding glass, plastic, and cardboard. Really: ” Once you exclude paper products and metals...” https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/opinion/sunday/the-reign-of-recycling.html
The claim that resource costs are low, so it’s a bad idea ignores the fact that they are low because they mostly come from countries with no pollution restrictions, and almost all don’t have GHG priced in.
In contrast, it usually costs nothing more than solid waste disposal, and when it is more expensive it isn’t by a large margin—https://www.jstor.org/stable/3110116 and it reduces GHG emissions a tremendous amount—https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10473289.2002.10470843