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Encouraging water-saving behavior during a “Moment of Change”: the efficacy of implementation intentions on water conservation during the transition to university

Kaloyan Mitev, Freya Rennison, Paul Haggar, Becki Hafner Orcid Logo, Alice Lowe, Lorraine Whitmarsh

Frontiers in Psychology, Volume: 15

Swansea University Author: Becki Hafner Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1465696

Abstract

Water saving behavior is of substantial importance in climate change mitigation and resilience, including reducing time spent in the shower. However, water use is, for many, a strong habit, and, as such, incorporating new water saving behaviors into one's domestic routines may be unsuccessful....

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Published in: Frontiers in Psychology
ISSN: 1664-1078
Published: Frontiers Media SA 2024
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa68252
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spelling 2025-01-15T14:12:41.5769296 v2 68252 2024-11-13 Encouraging water-saving behavior during a “Moment of Change”: the efficacy of implementation intentions on water conservation during the transition to university a21042aec21e3f06d929a6a3a55f3cc0 0000-0002-7090-5150 Becki Hafner Becki Hafner true false 2024-11-13 PSYS Water saving behavior is of substantial importance in climate change mitigation and resilience, including reducing time spent in the shower. However, water use is, for many, a strong habit, and, as such, incorporating new water saving behaviors into one's domestic routines may be unsuccessful. In this study, we consider the extent to which a composite behavior change intervention (of water-saving information, implementation intention formation, and monitoring using a shower timer) is effective in reducing the domestic water consumption of new university students who have recently moved into university accommodation. We focus on aspects of the habit discontinuity hypothesis, namely that a natural moment of change facilitates behavior change by weaking existing habits. The intervention was found to be effective, increasing the frequency of self-reported water-saving behavior over behavior measured in a control group. However, shower times, and water usage (measured at the residential level), were not affected by the intervention, and strength of existing habits, readiness to change water behavior, and recency of starting university were each not significantly associated with the effectiveness of the intervention. However, all participants (irrespective of intervention) increased water-saving behavior and reduced shower time during the study, with residential water usage being less for residences with more participating students. Contrary to expectations, the timing of the intervention did not show a clear effect upon the efficacy of the intervention. We discuss these findings with respect to moments of change and habit discontinuity theory as well as implications for practical behavior change interventions. Journal Article Frontiers in Psychology 15 Frontiers Media SA 1664-1078 water use, university student, moment of change, habit discontinuity, implementation intention 13 11 2024 2024-11-13 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1465696 COLLEGE NANME Psychology School COLLEGE CODE PSYS Swansea University External research funder(s) paid the OA fee (includes OA grants disbursed by the Library) This work was supported by the European Research Council as part of the MOCHA project [grant number 820235] and by the ESRC Center for Climate Change & Social Transformations (CAST); ES/S012257/1 2025-01-15T14:12:41.5769296 2024-11-13T09:30:42.1611537 Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences School of Psychology Kaloyan Mitev 1 Freya Rennison 2 Paul Haggar 3 Becki Hafner 0000-0002-7090-5150 4 Alice Lowe 5 Lorraine Whitmarsh 6 68252__33340__1c3753b4e59944a2bb2e05af0a87c3df.pdf 68252.VoR.pdf 2025-01-15T14:10:27.1764183 Output 858726 application/pdf Version of Record true © 2024 Mitev, Rennison, Haggar, Hafner, Lowe and Whitmarsh. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY). true eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
title Encouraging water-saving behavior during a “Moment of Change”: the efficacy of implementation intentions on water conservation during the transition to university
spellingShingle Encouraging water-saving behavior during a “Moment of Change”: the efficacy of implementation intentions on water conservation during the transition to university
Becki Hafner
title_short Encouraging water-saving behavior during a “Moment of Change”: the efficacy of implementation intentions on water conservation during the transition to university
title_full Encouraging water-saving behavior during a “Moment of Change”: the efficacy of implementation intentions on water conservation during the transition to university
title_fullStr Encouraging water-saving behavior during a “Moment of Change”: the efficacy of implementation intentions on water conservation during the transition to university
title_full_unstemmed Encouraging water-saving behavior during a “Moment of Change”: the efficacy of implementation intentions on water conservation during the transition to university
title_sort Encouraging water-saving behavior during a “Moment of Change”: the efficacy of implementation intentions on water conservation during the transition to university
author_id_str_mv a21042aec21e3f06d929a6a3a55f3cc0
author_id_fullname_str_mv a21042aec21e3f06d929a6a3a55f3cc0_***_Becki Hafner
author Becki Hafner
author2 Kaloyan Mitev
Freya Rennison
Paul Haggar
Becki Hafner
Alice Lowe
Lorraine Whitmarsh
format Journal article
container_title Frontiers in Psychology
container_volume 15
publishDate 2024
institution Swansea University
issn 1664-1078
doi_str_mv 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1465696
publisher Frontiers Media SA
college_str Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences
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hierarchy_top_id facultyofmedicinehealthandlifesciences
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofmedicinehealthandlifesciences
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences
department_str School of Psychology{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Psychology
document_store_str 1
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description Water saving behavior is of substantial importance in climate change mitigation and resilience, including reducing time spent in the shower. However, water use is, for many, a strong habit, and, as such, incorporating new water saving behaviors into one's domestic routines may be unsuccessful. In this study, we consider the extent to which a composite behavior change intervention (of water-saving information, implementation intention formation, and monitoring using a shower timer) is effective in reducing the domestic water consumption of new university students who have recently moved into university accommodation. We focus on aspects of the habit discontinuity hypothesis, namely that a natural moment of change facilitates behavior change by weaking existing habits. The intervention was found to be effective, increasing the frequency of self-reported water-saving behavior over behavior measured in a control group. However, shower times, and water usage (measured at the residential level), were not affected by the intervention, and strength of existing habits, readiness to change water behavior, and recency of starting university were each not significantly associated with the effectiveness of the intervention. However, all participants (irrespective of intervention) increased water-saving behavior and reduced shower time during the study, with residential water usage being less for residences with more participating students. Contrary to expectations, the timing of the intervention did not show a clear effect upon the efficacy of the intervention. We discuss these findings with respect to moments of change and habit discontinuity theory as well as implications for practical behavior change interventions.
published_date 2024-11-13T14:45:34Z
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