Designing Interventions that Last: A Classification of Environmental Behaviors in Relation to the Activities, Costs, and Effort Involved for Adoption and Maintenance

Policy makers draw on behavioral research to design interventions that promote the voluntary adoption of environmental behavior in societies. Many environmental behaviors will only be effective if they are maintained over the long-term. In the context of climate change and concerns about future water security, behaviors that involve reducing energy consumption and improving water qualitymust be continued indefinitely tomitigate global warming and preserve scarce resources. Previous reviews of environmental behavior have focused exclusively on factors related to adoption. This review investigates the factors that influence both adoption and maintenance, and presents a classification of environmental behaviors in terms of the activities, costs, and effort required for both adoption and maintenance. Three categories of behavior are suggested. One-off behaviors involve performing an activity once, such as purchasing an energy efficient washing machine, or signing a petition. Continuous behaviors involve the performance of the same set of behaviors for adoption and for maintenance, such as curbside recycling. Dynamic behaviors involve the performance of different behaviors for adoption and maintenance, such as revegetation. Behaviors can also be classified into four categories related to cost and effort: those that involve little cost and effort for adoption and maintenance, those that involve moderate cost and effort for adoption and maintenance, those that involve a high cost or effort for adoption and less for maintenance, and those that involve less cost or effort for adoption and a higher amount for maintenance. In order to design interventions that last, policy makers should consider the factors that influence the maintenance as well as the adoption of environmental behaviors

Do gambling activity patterns predict gambling problems? A latent class analysis of gambling forms among Australian youth

Although gambling frequency and easy access to gambling are predictive of gambling problems among young people, little is known about their patterns of gambling activities. The current study investigated the gambling patterns of a large sample of youth (N = 1061) using latent class analysis. Six activity classes of young gamblers were identified: rare, lottery/scratch card, broad ranging, pool, unrestricted access and heavy gamblers. The classes differed significantly on age, gender, number and type of gambling activities, gambling frequency, problem gambling and amount spent on gambling. In addition, the relationship between problem gambling and the amount spent differed across classes. The results indicate the value of assessing gambling patterns as well as gambling frequency in research examining problem gambling. Although older youth have more opportunity to legally engage in a wider range of gambling activities, young people's gambling activity patterns are more indicative of potential gambling problems than age