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Moral Suasion

2 March, 2015 - 12:11

Back in the days when preventing forest fires was a goal of public policy, a cartoon character called Smokey the Bear once asked us to be careful with fire. Signs everywhere remind us not to litter. Some communities have mounted campaigns that admonish us to “Give a hoot—don’t pollute.”

These efforts to influence our choices are examples of moral suasion, an effort to change people’s behavior by appealing to their sense of moral values. Moral suasion is widely used as a tactic in attempting to reduce pollution. It has, for example, been fairly successful in campaigns against littering, which can be considered a kind of pollution. Efforts at moral suasion are not generally successful in reducing activities that pollute the air and water. Pleas that people refrain from driving on certain days when pollution is very great, for example, achieve virtually no compliance.

Moral suasion appears to be most effective in altering behaviors that are not already widespread and for which the cost of compliance is low. It is easy to be careful with one’s fires or to avoid littering. Moral suasion does not, however, appear to lead to significant changes in behavior when compliance costs are high or when the activity is already widely practiced. It is therefore not likely to be an effective tool for reducing most forms of pollution.