The Psychology of Environmental Communication

Which are you more apt to respond to while visiting your hotel room’s bathroom: “Help the hotel save energy, please reuse the towels” or “Help preserve the environment for future generations, please reuse the towels”? Check out the whole article here.
The latter boasts an effectiveness rate almost 8 times higher than the former (even if it does sound sorta hokey). Likewise, similar experiments on phrases like “Stay on the path” vs. “Dont go off the path” are interpreted in radically different ways. What’s fascinating about this is not so much the idea of controlling people’s minds, but rather learning about effective communication. It’s entirely possible that the psychology of whoever is uttering the phrase is equally affected. Cool stuff worth thinking about when arguing for a positive environmental agenda.