People are more likely to reuse hotel towels if they know other guests are doing it too. A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research examined participation rates in a towel re-use program designed to reduce unnecessary laundering.
Authors Noah J. Goldstein (University of Chicago), Robert B. Cialdini, and Vladas Griskevicius (both Arizona State University) found that the types of signs posted in hotel bathrooms had different effects. Signs that focused on the environmental benefits were less effective than signs that pointed out the level of participation of other guests.
"These experiments are aimed at better understanding the factors that motivate consumers to engage in actions for the benefit of the environment. This important topic, along with pro-social behavior in general, is a severely understudied area of consumer research," explain the authors.
In the study, researchers set out to boost participation in the towel re-use program of a major hotel chain. The hotel's manager and staff allowed the researchers to create a series of different towel re-use cards, which were placed in the hotel's bathrooms. Some cards read "Help Save the Environment" and others read "Join Your Fellow Guests in Helping to Save the Environment." Both provided information on how resources are preserved when guests re-use towels. Room attendants recorded reuse rates. Cards that focused on the level of participation of other guests, which essentially conveyed that it is normal to participate, increased the percentage of participation from 35.1 percent to 44.1 percent.
In a second study, the researchers were able to boost towel re-use even further by placing a sign in the room that said 75 percent of guests in that specific room re-used their towels.
"The results of our studies have clear implications for marketers, managers, and policymakers," write the authors. "It is worth noting that the normative messages, which were messages that we have never seen utilized by hotel chains, fared significantly better at spurring participation in the hotel's environmental conservation program than did the type of message most commonly utilized by hotel chains—messages that focus on the importance of environmental protection."
Source: University of Chicago Press Journals
Related stories:
Freescale, Philips and STMicroelectronics Expand Industry's Largest R&D Alliance
The Crolles2 Alliance partners STMicroelectronics, Philips and Freescale Semiconductor have reached a preliminary agreement to cooperate on the creation and validation of high-level System-on-Chip (SoC) intellectual property (IP) blocks. Implementation and completion of this agreement is still subject to the successful conclusion of a contract between the partners.
Astronauts face hardest spacewalk to finish repair
(AP) -- Astronauts up on the international space station faced the longest and hardest spacewalk of their mission Saturday, a seven-hour-plus excursion to wrap up repair work on a gummed-up joint.
NASA's space water recycling system has hiccups
(AP) -- NASA's revolutionary new space water recycling system is having serious hiccups. The $154 million device for turning astronauts' urine and sweat into drinking water aboard the international space station shut down again Friday, and engineers on the ground were scrambling to figure out what was wrong.
Natural gas rush stirs environmental concerns
(AP) -- Advanced drilling techniques that blast millions of gallons of water into 400-million-year-old shale formations a mile underground are opening up "unconventional" gas fields touted as a key to the nation's energy future.
Staples offers free Dell PC recycling
(AP) -- Dell Inc. and office-supply vendor Staples Inc. are working together to offer free recycling for Dell computers, printers and other products.
Pickleweed tolerates irrigation with seawater and high levels of boron
Reuse of agricultural drainage water (DW) for irrigation is one of the few on-farm water management options available to growers on the west side of California's San Joaquin Valley (SJV) for reducing drainage water volumes (San Joaquin Valley Drainage Implementation Program, 2000). Management strategies that reduce drainage volumes are attractive because they would reduce the area required for environmentally sensitive evaporation ponds and lower the costs associated with disposal of the final effluent. Moreover, reductions in drainage volume would reduce the amount of trace elements (Se, B and Mo) and nutrients reaching the San Joaquin River and would help grower's meet newly established targets for total maximum daily loads (TMDLs).
Form of Crohn's disease traced to disabled gut cells
Scientists report online this week in
Nature that they have linked the health of specialized gut immune cells to a gene associated with Crohn's disease, an often debilitating and increasingly prevalent inflammatory bowel disorder.
Marine debris will likely worsen in the 21st century
Current measures to prevent and reduce marine debris are inadequate, and the problem will likely worsen, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council. The United States and the international maritime community should adopt a goal of "zero discharge" of waste into the marine environment, and a system to assess the effectiveness of existing and future marine debris prevention and reduction actions should be implemented. In addition, better leadership, coordination, and integration of mandates and resources are needed, as responsibilities for preventing and mitigating marine debris are scattered across federal organizations and management regimes.