Small Steps Don't Lead to Large Behavior Change

Worldchanging summarizes a WWF report.

"to create lasting change, groups working for environmental change should be targeting the intrinsic set of values that motivates the public, rather than tantalizing their extrinsic desires."

My comments on worldchanging's summary:

* WWF has a pejorative, limiting definition of social marketing. WWF is not criticizing CBSM.

* There is still plenty of opportunity to educate folks about CBSM and persuasion techniques. There are 12+ pages of comments to the article, with many posters inventing incorrect pop psychology explanations.

* The WWF author wants to take on big items: urban planning, profound change, and changes to improve democracies. WWF believes that solutions are essentially political in nature, IE government policies will be able to bring about large scale behavior change, similar to huge changes brought about during WWII to the U.S. homefront (recycling, strict rationing of many items, big changes to economic output, advancement of women in the workforce, etc). I believe that successful community-based programs can spread virally and make profound, large progress without needing to wait for government intervention.

The article: June 24: http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008144.html: Do small steps actually lead anywhere? We all know the theory that small steps lead to bigger steps, which lead in turn to real change. And there are certainly a lot of small steps on offer these days, from the latest home energy tracker to the solar bikini.