Want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip
<i>&quot;The potential of positive self-directed emotions has largely not been embraced by activists. The worry could be that it might make those engaging in the cause appear self-satisfied or selfish. But these studies suggest that, instead of focusing on ‘doom and gloom’ messaging that zooms in on people’s shortcomings and risks alienating them, policymakers and strategists might find that positive messaging, speaking to people’s positive sense of self, might be a more powerful lever of behavioural change.&quot;</i><p>getting results like this from giving study subjects a questionnaire is nice, but is there an actual real world, macro example of somehow inducing positive self-images on a large scale and seeing the desired effect?<p>I think negative, external reinforcement has a much stronger real-world case. One only needs to look at the behaviour in countries like China or Japan, where guilt and social punishment has been used as a tool for probably thousands of years, with actual results. Singapore&#x27;s a place that is well known for getting people to do the right thing, I&#x27;m not sure they managed to do it with pats on the back.<p>And to pick up the examples from the article, environmentally-friendly behaviour, haven&#x27;t we seen real results after we began, often with aggressive campaigns, how ruining the environment is both wasteful and harmful, having turned symbols of excess into symbols of shame?