PSYC 421: Environmental Sustainability Project at UBC

Overview

This project explores environmental sustainability practices at the University of British Columbia (UBC), focusing on behaviors related to single-use cups. Guided by Dr. Jiaying Zhao and the SEEDS program, we analyzed interventions to influence the use of single-use versus reusable cups.

Team Members - Sustain-A-Cup Squad

• Riddhi Battu (Author)
• Yuzuo Chen
• Pedro de Faria Santos
• Gloria Gu
• Disha Jain
• Malvika Krishnan

Objectives

• To analyze the effectiveness of "Gain," "Loss," and "Control" interventions on single-use cup behavior.
• To assess the impact on reducing single-use cups and increasing reusable cup usage.

Methodology

• Data Collection: Survey data from 258 UBC participants using Qualtrics; 253 valid responses after excluding missing values.
• Data Analysis:
  • Preprocessing: Cleaning and coding survey responses.
  • Statistical Analysis:
    • Levene's Test for Homogeneity of Variances: No evidence of variance inequality, validating ANOVA assumptions.
    • Shapiro-Wilk Test for Normality: Residuals from ANOVAs did not follow normal distribution, necessitating the use of Kruskal-Wallis tests.
    • Kruskal-Wallis Test and Dunn’s Test for post-hoc analysis on non-parametric data.

Results

Q2: Surprisingness of Information

• Kruskal-Wallis chi-squared = 18.661, df = 2, p < 0.0001: Significant differences in perceived surprisingness.
• Dunn’s Test:
  • Control vs. Gain: Significant difference (p = 0.0007).
  • Control vs. Loss: Significant difference (p = 0.0001).
  • Gain vs. Loss: No significant difference (p = 1.0000).

Q3: Likelihood of Reducing Single-Use Cups

• Kruskal-Wallis chi-squared = 5.233, df = 2, p = 0.072: No significant differences among conditions.

Q4: Likelihood of Bringing Reusable Cups

• Kruskal-Wallis chi-squared = 8.761, df = 2, p = 0.012: Significant differences in likelihood of bringing reusable cups.
• Dunn’s Test:
  • Control vs. Gain: No significant difference (p = 0.4809).
  • Control vs. Loss: Significant difference (p = 0.0054).
  • Gain vs. Loss: No significant difference (p = 0.0882).

Conclusions and Recommendations

• Loss-framed interventions are more effective in promoting reusable cup usage compared to control, but not significantly different from gain-framed messages.
• Future research should explore combining different types of interventions with loss-framed messages for enhanced sustainability practices on campus.

Acknowledgements

We express our gratitude to Dr. Jiaying Zhao for her guidance and insights throughout this project.