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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Environmental Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1377211
This article is part of the Research Topic How Do Behavior Science Interventions to Reduce Environmental Impacts Work in The Real World? View all 5 articles

Using an Instagram Campaign to Influence Knowledge, Subjective Norms, Perceived Behavioral Control, and Behavioral Intentions for Sustainable Behaviors

Provisionally accepted
Alexander Varni Alexander Varni *Chan L. Thai Chan L. Thai *Sandra Jamaleddine Sandra Jamaleddine
  • Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Climate change poses one of the most pervasive threats to the planet today. Intervention is required to promote pro-environmental behaviors among individuals to curb its effects. Borrowing several constructs from the Theory of Planned Behavior, we designed and evaluated a campaign, delivered primarily through Instagram, to shift sustainability-related cognitions and behaviors among university students. An online survey was distributed to undergraduate students at a Northern California university and collected responses from 1,552 participants. Comparing students who self-reported exposure to the campaign with those who were not exposed, students who observed the campaign materials had more knowledge about (p<.001), greater perceived social norms about (p<.001), and greater intentions to perform sustainable behaviors (p<.001). There were also increases in sustainable behaviors during the campaign, compared to the previous academic term. Implementing campaigns inspired by behavior change theories may be one viable strategy to increase individual sustainable behaviors for climate change mitigation.

    Keywords: Climate Change, Theory of Planned Behavior, behavior change intervention, university students, Instagram. Using an Instagram Campaign to Influence Knowledge, Subjective Norms, Perceived Behavioral Control, and Behavioral Intentions for Sustainable Behaviors

    Received: 26 Jan 2024; Accepted: 19 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Varni, Thai and Jamaleddine. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Alexander Varni, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, 95053, California, United States
    Chan L. Thai, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, 95053, California, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.