Behavior and Environment Human Decision Processes

Question: Discuss about the Behavior and Environment Human Decision Processes. Answer: Introduction: There are many problems related with the problem of littering and making the park dirty that includes blocking of drains, high cost expense for cleaning of the park, and polluting the parks environment (Stern, 2000). It is important for keeping the environment clean and green of the Sydney Olympic Park. However, there has been growth of the littering and it has been continuously rising with the passage of time. Targeted elements for the problem The Littering is the process of throwing away and leaving the waste rubbish in a state of lying around at public places (Bateson et al., 2013). The waste materials include cigarette butts, plastic bags, and other paper items. The main cause for the problem of littering is the human habit of throwing away of the garbage and waste materials anywhere. The laziness of people to throw away the trash in the dustbin had resulted in causing the problem of littering. Hence, it is important for making them realize the importance of keeping the park clean. The Government had spent around $300 million for cleaning the littering and garbage that has been lying in the city all over (Steg Vlek, 2009). The garbage or waste that should be targeted for removal from the park includes cigarettes, wrappers, and plastic bags. These items when get into the drain, blocks the pipeline overflowing the drain water. It would help in maintaining the clean surroundings of the Sydney Olympic Park. Change implementation for Littering The use of information intervention would be helpful for dealing with the issue of littering. The information intervention is useful for providing information, facts, and significance to people with the aid of comprehensive instructions (Heyduck Glattacker, 2013). The people who are daily visitors of Sydney Olympic Park should be targeted for the intervention and be provided with instructions on how to keep their surroundings clean. The intervention would help in assisting people for getting accustomed to the process of keeping their surrounding clean by making them aware of the problems of littering and their bad affects on the environment. The following sections would help in forming and intervention strategy for dealing with the problems of the littering of waste all around Sydney Olympic Park to keep the park clean and green. Hence, an intervention should be made for making people aware of the growing problems due to the littering so that they could develop a habitat for keeping their surrounding clean. Explanation of Intervention Strategy The intervention process used for dealing with the issue of littering at Sydney Olympic Park would be Information Intervention that has been targeted for youngsters (group intervention). The following sections have highlighted the intended achievements from the intervention for littering problems and the process involved in dealing with those problems. Achievements from intervention strategy The intervention strategy had been made for developing ways for dealing with the littering problems (issue in drainage system and polluting the environment of the park). These strategies (making people aware about bad effects of littering and making proper waste disposal system) would be helpful for dealing with the problems of littering of waste materials around the Sydney Olympic Park. The littering of the park is a result of isolated behavior from people in terms of physical and social context (Bamberg, 2013). The intervention would result in sustaining the parks quality and environment. Basically youngsters are targeted for intervention strategy as they are amongst the largest polluters of the Sydney Olympic Park. The type of intervention used is Information intervention and the procedure followed is based on the littering behavior of the targeted groups. Processes involved in the group intervention for littering The processes involved in the group intervention on the issues of littering and finding of the solutions for those issues at Sydney Olympic Park is based on the Theory of Planned Behavior and it includes the following processes- Use of Social Norm: The primary method for making youngsters aware about the problems of littering is by focusing on peer groups in place of individuals (Shaw et al., 2014). Influencing the most significant individual from the group would also help in diverting the whole group towards the aim of the intervention. Group norms and commitments are more likely to be followed by group members than an individual norm or commitment. Influence their attitude: The use of clear and short messages would help in attracting more youngsters for getting acquainted with the goals and norms of the intervention (Neelakantan et al., 2013). It is important for exposing the youngsters about the problems and issues of the littering. The biodegradability of the litters should be made aware to them so that they focus more on keeping the park clean and green. Behavior Control: The proper waste disposal methods and techniques should be made aware to the youngsters. The empty dustbins and recycling bins must be present in the park for facilitating the proper disposals of waste and trashes. Justification of the Intervention Strategy The intervention strategy has been developed for targeting the youngsters and making them understand about the problems of the littering for the Sydney Olympic Park. The Theory of Planned Behavior would be helpful for supporting the process for intervention of littering (Werner et al., 2012). The primary reason behind the solution for the issue of littering is the peer influence on people. However, some other influences like realization of bad effects of littering, personal norms, amount/proximity of dustbins, and sense of community can be used for implementing the solutions for the littering in Sydney Olympic Park. The main reasons behind the use of group intervention strategy using Theory of Planned Behavior are In the social age, youngsters are more easily influenced from the trends and hence, peer influence would be more effective than individual influence The use of information about the bad effects of the littering would be helpful for making them aware about the necessity for keeping the environment clean and green Presence of proximate garbage disposal system (dustbins and recycle bins) would be helpful in tending people to use them instead of throwing garbage here and there (littering) The barriers to the intervention strategy and their mitigation processes are listed in the table below- Barriers and Risk Factors Mitigation Strategies Lack of Information on the Littering Review of a number of literature and interviews of experts for getting prior and complete information on the effects of littering Unable to influence youngsters Implementing reward system and competition for keeping the park clean and it would attract more youngsters for keeping the park clean Absence of dust bins and recycling system Get support from the local communities for developing waste disposal system at the park Table 1: Barriers for Littering Intervention and their Mitigation Strategy (Source: Cognis et al., 2014, pp-405) References Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50, 179-211. Bamberg, S. (2013). Applying the stage model of self-regulated behavioral change in a car use reduction intervention.Journal of Environmental Psychology,33, 68-75. Bateson, M., Callow, L., Holmes, J. R., Roche, M. L. R., Nettle, D. (2013). Do images of watching eyes induce behaviour that is more pro-social or more normative? A field experiment on littering.PloS one,8(12), e82055. Cornish, M. A., Thys, A., Vogel, D. L., Wade, N. G. (2014). Post-deployment difficulties and help seeking barriers among military veterans: Insights and intervention strategies.Professional Psychology: Research and Practice,45(6), 405. Heyduck, K., Glattacker, M. (2013, July). Review of a Common Sense Model-based patient information intervention in the context of rehabilitation. In27th Conference of the European Health Psychology Society(Vol. 19). Neelakantan, P., Gerrard, G., Lucas, C., Milojkovic, D., May, P., Wang, L., ... O'Brien, S. (2013). Combining BCR-ABL1 transcript levels at 3 and 6 months in chronic myeloid leukemia: implications for early intervention strategies.Blood,121(14), 2739-2742. Shaw, W. S., Besen, E., Pransky, G., Boot, C. R., Nicholas, M. K., McLellan, R. K., Tveito, T. H. (2014). Manage at work: a randomized, controlled trial of a self-management group intervention to overcome workplace challenges associated with chronic physical health conditions.BMC public health,14(1), 1. Steg, L., Vlek, C. (2009). Encouraging pro-environmental behaviour: An integrative review and research agenda. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 29, 309-317. doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2008.10.004 Stern, P. (2000). Toward a coherent theory of environmentally significant behaviour. Journal of Social Issues, 56(3), 407-24. Werner, C. M., Cook, S., Colby, J., Lim, H-J. (2012). Lights out in university classrooms: Brief group discussion can change behaviour. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 32, 418426. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvp.2012.07.001