Analysis of Guilt and Recycling: A Communicating Psychology Report

This report investigates the role of collective guilt in motivating recycling behavior among residents of urbanized nations like Australia. The study involved 85 participants and examined the relationship between collective guilt, social appeal, norms, attitudes towards recycling, and the percentage of household waste recycled. The findings suggest that while individuals who accepted more guilt for their group's actions exhibited more positive attitudes towards recycling, collective guilt did not effectively predict actual recycling behavior. Social norms also showed a similar pattern. The report delves into different types of guilt, such as reactive, existential, and anticipatory guilt, and their potential influence on behavior. It also discusses the importance of ecological behaviors like recycling and the research methodology employed, including cluster analysis to identify relevant variables and data collection through online questionnaires. The implications of the findings for public authorities and advertising are explored, emphasizing the need for caution when using guilt as a promotional tool. Ultimately, the study highlights the complex interplay between guilt, social norms, and environmental attitudes in shaping recycling behavior, suggesting that sustainable behaviors are most likely to occur when guilt is combined with social pressure and internalized norms.

Running Head: Communicating Psychology
Communicating Psychology
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Communicating Psychology
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................2
Guilt and Behaviour Change............................................................................................2
Focus on Recycling Behaviors...........................................................................................3
Research Methodology......................................................................................................3
Findings............................................................................................................................4
Cluster Analysis..........................................................................................................................4
Testing of the relations in between correlation variables...........................................................5
Implications......................................................................................................................5
Conclusion........................................................................................................................7
References.........................................................................................................................8
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Communicating Psychology
Introduction
There have actually been proofs of the environmental concerns which the world is facing in
this modern world. There are resources which are unsustainable in the countries which are
developed. This report is to study about the collective guilt in public or the members who
belong to the urbanised nation, Australia which was examined as a factor that motivates
persons for recycling. 85 participants completed the report processes of collective guilt, social
appeal, norms and attitudes for the recycling and the total percentage of household waste
recycled (Koestner, 2001). As it was already predicted that the people who accepted more
guilt for the acts in their group reported much more positive attitudes towards recycling.
Though, collective guilt failed in predicting the real behaviour of recycling. Similarly, the
same was found for the norms which are social but not for the wasted recycled. The study
validated the part of the feelings of collective guilt and social norms in environmental field.
The implication of the future research of the collective guilt on the behaviour of ecology is
been discussed.
Guilt and Behaviour Change
Guilt is theorized as the attribute if personality i.e. predisposition of the individual that finds
feeling and expressions in the general trend in feeling guilty or it can be called as an emotion
which refers to the temporary state of guilt (Johansson , 2016).
The research which was done emphasized only on the later approach with that outline,
usually guilt was taken as an undesirable and unfriendly phase which occurs when an
person's behavior contradicts alongside one’s standards of moral.
According to Huhmann and Botherton (1997), they combined prior works on the basis of
some theories and found out that there are three major types of guilt and they differ with
respect to the reasons which leads to an understanding of the guilt. Reactive guilt happens
whenever the rules which are internalized were disobeyed. Existential guilt happens when the
person feel that he is privileged than others. Anticipatory guilt is defined as the anticipated
feeling that a person experiences when they intend to violate their own standards. This type
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of anticipation give the chance to ignore the emotions which are cold and connect with
transgression (Baek & Yoon, 2017).
The idea of guilt finally in 1980s and 1990s started to attract the attentiveness of the theorists
with in the field of marketing. The idea that bad emotions can lead to the acceptance of some
particular behaviors, the researchers suggested to extend the present information on the
effects of fear for exploring the opportunity of guilt as an encouragement tool (Bedford &
Jackson, 2007).
Focus on Recycling Behaviors
Choice done on ecological behavior for the research is critical as a few of the environmental
friendly behaviors are implemented for no-ecological reasons. For example, conservation of
energy may be encouraged by financial economy, purchasing of organic food may be
approved for the health benefits etc. This type of study emphasis on recycling as these kinds
of behaviors suggests personal costs with respect to energy and time and do not profit the
person in direct manner. Since, the motivation which are ego centric are less clear, an
individual can easily assume that the motivations which are pro-environmental are much
more genuine. The research which deals in the motivations of recycling found out that it is
manipulated by unselfish ethics and fulfillment from thrift with other motives (Ferguson &
Branscombe, 2010).
Research Methodology
Preliminary step: Choice of variables for clustering: For identifying the relevant variables to
differentiate the profiles which are related to some specific behaviors, a attention group was
carried out which had eight respondents who had a few queries related to the major
differences with-in individuals who do the recycling regularly and those who do not.
Selection of the variables for cluster analysis: Form the perspective pf the typology, the
formulated instructions were done voluntarily for explicating discrepancies with in the
recyclers and the non-recyclers. Rather than asking the question of what can motivate the
recycling, the idea became to place focus on the causes which likely distinguish within the
profiles which are opposite. Once, the detailed list of all the motivations are laid down, the
respondents were queried about the short list of the variables which they had faith of being
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the most relevant (Habashi, 2012). The conclusion was opposite to non-recyclers. The result
of that was that the three variables were taken for the further learning and named as
environmental distress, taken easing condition and awareness of bad results. The guilt which
was expected, which was studied in the research, the cycling behaviour was also involved for
computing the cluster analysis (Grigore, 2017).
The data collection: This occured in the year 2010 with in the respondents who lived in
France. The questionnaire was read out via the online review. This method permitted people
to reach in different places all across the nation (Schneider & Markowitz, 2017). Construct
measurement Awareness of adverse penalties (ANC) was measured with three items
encouraged by previous work by Stern, the one who detained the theory of outcome of
environmental conditions for one self or for the others. Few items were taken for the research
and they were later used to measure the harmful impacts of waste due to non-recycling at few
levels: individual level, the whole country and animal species. PFC were captured in two
items which measure the respondent’s beliefs about authorities public (Valle, 2005).
The guilt known as anticipated guilt was counted in the three-item scale. The idea of
emotions of ecological guilt was measured in the prior research but the items in order to
measure the anticipation of these feelings. If being more specific, the researchers were
looking for the expectation of the emotion of guilt which people would experience in case if
they unsuccessful to recycle in future. Furthermore, it catches the concerns of environment as
one of the dimension which refers to the attitude toward the issues in the environment and
theorization which is gained from the study.
Approach used for the clustering: The analysis was based of the factors which were
standardized on the basis of the score. There were sample given in the partitioned method
with the usage of the K means clustering. It was desired to a hierarchical method.
Findings
Cluster Analysis
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The process which ism mentioned in the above data leads the researchers to the three clusters.
The test known as ANOVA was important for the five variables which means that the three
groups have various dissimilar factors of features based on the standards. The group 1 was
characterized by the low scores. On the other hand, the people who belonged to the second
group were characterized by the high scores in all the variable. The first cluster only
accounted 15 percent of the sample whereas the second one was approx. 48 percent which
seemed surprising in the attitude of environment and the behaviours were subjected to the
desirability in terms of society.
The third and last cluster was at 37 percent and displayed more unsure characteristics. The
persons in this group were worried concerning of the environment and knew about the bad
penalties than the people in group 2. This just means that people with same level of the
concern about the environment and consciousness of bad consequences do not act in the same
manner. The difference in the behaviour seemed because of the differences which were taken
to be as easing conditions and expected guilt.
Testing of the relations in between correlation variables
This displayed the quality of the perception of the recycling in the next three months and was
correlated to the EC, ANC, PFC and AG. The association which was predicted was
(r ¼ 0:663; p , 0:001). Such type of variables importantly was connected with each other
except the concern about the environment and the conditions. The regression analysis which
was multiple was intended to be dependent and all other for variables highlighted a model
which was satisfactory with R2 ¼ 0:723. This type of result with the conclusion stemming
the literature and advices that the effect of the attributes of environment is indirect. Variance
Inflation Factor (VIF) scores as well as Tolerance scores were used to identify
multicollinearity, that seemed to be satisfactory (Catlin & Wang, 2013).
Implications
When talked about the authorities which are public and advertising, the research displayed
that guilt refers to the relevant push to the people for recycling more regularly. There was one
way for proceeding which would have been focussed on the bad results connected with
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indecision on both the environment and the person’s self-respect. Though, such type of
practices would be used with safety cautiousness since prior research displayed that guilt
which are little and modest will refer to the advertising whereas high level of guilt will make
people angry and hence, discredit the message. Moreover, the promotion of the recycling via
guilt can have very opposite and bad impact on people if they have this belief that they are
not delivered with the important device to act ecologically. This was an idea which was given
by the qualitative study. There should be no centres for the waste treatment ( Miller,
Soulliere, Beaulieu, Tseng , & Tam, 2014). Only glass was actually being recycled. The
efforts shown by the people can actually go to wastes. The policy makers had the imprint of
what exactly was desirable and voters got freed of the guilt by putting a very small bag in the
yellow bin. The findings showed that the people who did not believed in the recycling and
anticipated strong emption of guilt were related to not recycle their waste tend not to recycle
(Arli, 2016).
As it was stated prior, the contributors who belonged to the cluster 1 were presently more
reluctant for recycling as compared to cluster 1. Yet, the interesting thing was the assessment
concerning the purpose to recycle in upcoming days which depicted the recyclers who had
potential to do that and displayed strong intentions for recycling than non-recyclers. This
shows that the people who do not want to recycle as they think that they are not given apt
resources and things for recycling will be able to changed their behaviour easily later if they
feel that they are motivated in the similar trend with more amenities afforded.
As the result of this, the organization which are open to public communicates for making the
citizens aware of the implementations done. This will impact on the behaviour of the citizens
and direct them to the activation of the feelings that were anticipated out of guilt. According
to Koestner (2001), he stated and advised that recycling which is done due to guilt displays
the non-stable attitudes and emotions of the person. The recyclers should be able to feel that
they are the ones who are actually doing it as it is important and related to the norms of their
own society. This idea is actually sensible, although, it can easily be an argument that the
sustainable behaviours occur when there is guilt for recycling and there is also pressure for
complying with the social pressure. According to Bamberg (2007), he displayed that the
provocation of guilt might occur with the perception of the social norms of the environment
but the norms which already persists can change into personal norms via internalization
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process. Hence, authorities of public can emphasize on the social dimension of recycling
which people can internalize eventually.
Conclusion
The study emphasizes on how the guilt is received for the acts of the people in a group when
linked with the positive attitudes for the amount of environmental mindedness, namely
attitudes for recycling. Though, acceptance of shared guilt could not predict the amount of
household rubbish individuals who were reported of recycling, attitudes towards recycling
was seriously associated with the similar trend in which they predicted attitudes for recycling
but no recycling behaviours. Recycling behaviour in North Queensland might be augmented
perhaps with gestures of the group’s support to waste production, that liability for performing
biologically lays with each person, that one’s actions do make a variance and that recycling is
a ‘not also tough’ task and is a behaviour predicted and implemented by other people in the
society.
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References
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cross national study. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 40(1).
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Journal of Advertising, 440-453.
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http://resolve.sustainablelifestyles.ac.uk/sites/default/files/resolve_wp_07-
11amended.pdf
Catlin, J. R., & Wang, Y. (2013). Recycling gone bad: When the option to recycle increases
resource consumption☆. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 23(1), 122-127.
Ferguson, M. A., & Branscombe, N. R. (2010). Collective guilt mediates the effect of beliefs
about global warming on willingness to engage in mitigation behavior. Journal of
Environmental Psychology 3, 30, 135-142.
Grigore, M. E. (2017). Methods of Recycling, Properties and Applications of Recycled
Thermoplastic Polymers. Recycling, 2(24).
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2560.
Miller, L., Soulliere, K., Beaulieu, S. S., Tseng , S., & Tam, E. (2014). Challenges and
Alternatives to Plastics Recycling in the Automotive Sector. Materials , 7.
Schneider, C. R., & Markowitz, E. M. (2017). The influence of anticipated pride and guilt on
pro-environmental decision making. PLos.
Valle, O. D. (2005). COMBINING BEHAVIORAL THEORIES TO PREDICT RECYCLING
INVOLVEMENT. ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOR, 37(3), 364-396.
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