AAUA don advocates responsible environmental behaviour to tackle pollution
A Professor of Applied Social and Environmental Psychology at Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Oluyinka Ojedokun, recently dissected how most environmental challenges confronting the world are largely driven by human behaviour
A Professor of Applied Social and Environmental Psychology at Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Oluyinka Ojedokun, recently dissected how most environmental challenges confronting the world are largely driven by human behaviour and collective actions, urging citizens to adopt what he described as responsible environmental conduct to address the problem. Ojedokun, while delivering the institution’s 56th inaugural lecture, titled, “God Made the Earth, Humans Made the Town,” emphasised the need for deliberate actions to restore and maintain a balanced ecosystem. Excerpt:
The inaugural lecture titled “God Made the Earth, Humans Made the Town” examines environmental problems through the lens of social psychology, particularly the role of human behaviour in shaping environmental outcomes. The central argument is that while the Earth is a natural endowment, the conditions under which it exists today, especially within towns and cities, are largely products of human behaviour. Consequently, environmental sustainability cannot be achieved through technological innovation or policy interventions alone; it must also involve deliberate changes in everyday human behaviour.
The lecture situates environmental challenges within the relationship between people and their physical environment. Social psychology provides a powerful framework for understanding this relationship because it focuses on how human thoughts, emotions, and behaviours are shaped by social contexts and how these behaviours transform physical environments. From this perspective, cities, communities, and institutions are social constructions shaped by human values, choices, and everyday practices.
Urban environments, particularly in rapidly urbanising societies such as Nigeria, illustrate this dynamics vividly. While cities support economic growth and social interaction, they also generate environmental problems including waste accumulation, pollution, blocked drainage systems, and degradation of shared spaces. These problems are often attributed to infrastructural limitations or government failures, but they are also deeply rooted in patterns of human behaviour—how individuals dispose of waste, how they treat public spaces, and how they respond to environmental norms.
The concept of Responsible Environmental Behaviour (REB) serves as the theoretical anchor of the lecture. Responsible environmental behaviour refers to deliberate actions aimed at minimising environmental harm and promoting sustainability. These behaviours include proper waste disposal, recycling, participation in environmental clean up initiatives, and discouraging environmentally harmful practices. Importantly, responsible environmental behaviour goes beyond environmental awareness or positive attitudes. Many individuals express concern about environmental issues yet fail to translate that concern into consistent behavioural action, a gap often described as the value–action gap.
The lecture emphasises that environmental problems are fundamentally behavioural problems. Actions such as littering are produced through routine daily activities that gradually accumulate to create environmental degradation. Unlike global environmental issues such as climate change, littering occurs in everyday spaces such as streets, markets, homes, and campuses. Because it is habitual and often performed automatically, littering behaviour is particularly resistant to change. Understanding the psychological mechanisms underlying such behaviour is therefore essential for developing effective interventions.
A major focus of the lecture is littering prevention behaviour, defined as voluntary actions through which individuals avoid littering, dispose of waste properly, and encourage others to do the same. These behaviours contribute to improved environmental quality, stronger civic responsibility, and more sustainable communities. Research presented in the lecture demonstrates that littering prevention behaviour is influenced by a range of psychosocial factors including attitudes, personality traits, self concept, locus of control, and environmental self efficacy.
Studies conducted in community settings reveal that individuals who possess negative attitudes toward littering are significantly more likely to engage in responsible environmental behaviour. Attitudes serve as a key psychological mechanism through which personal characteristics influence behaviour. Traits such as altruism and a strong internal locus of control indirectly promote responsible environmental behaviour by shaping anti littering attitudes. Environmental self efficacy, individuals’ belief in their ability to perform environmentally responsible actions, also emerges as a strong predictor of littering prevention behaviour.
These findings highlight that environmental responsibility develops through the interaction of individual psychological characteristics and supportive social environments. Effective environmental interventions must therefore address both personal dispositions and contextual factors such as infrastructure, institutional norms, and community expectations.
The lecture also examines littering behaviour within the university context, where campuses function as microcosms of broader society. Universities face increasing challenges related to waste management and environmental sustainability, particularly as students generate significant amounts of disposable waste through everyday activities. Studying littering prevention behaviour among students is therefore valuable not only for improving campus environments but also for understanding how environmental behaviours develop among young adults who will shape future societal practices.
A key theoretical framework used to explain student environmental behaviour is Future Time Perspective (FTP), which refers to how individuals perceive and plan for the future. Responsible environmental behaviour often requires individuals to accept small present inconveniences for long term collective benefits. Research shows that several dimensions of future time perspective significantly predict littering prevention behaviour among university students. Students who exhibit future positive thinking, perseverance, planning, and clarity about future goals are more likely to engage in responsible environmental behaviour.
These findings suggest that sustainability initiatives within universities can be strengthened by cultivating future oriented thinking among students. Programs that emphasise goal setting, planning skills, and long term environmental consequences can encourage students to translate environmental concern into concrete behavioural actions.
The lecture further explores eco anxiety, a psychological response characterised by worry and distress about environmental degradation. While excessive anxiety can lead to disengagement, moderate ecological concern can motivate responsible behaviour. Research indicates that eco anxiety can act as a psychological bridge between future oriented thinking and environmental action. However, environmental education must present environmental risks alongside achievable solutions so that concern translates into constructive engagement rather than helplessness.
Beyond individual behaviour, the lecture examines Organisational Citizenship Behaviour for the Environment (OCBE) within university communities. OCBE refers to voluntary actions through which individuals contribute to environmental sustainability beyond formal requirements. Examples include initiating environmental improvements, encouraging others to behave responsibly, and participating in institutional sustainability programmes.
Research findings show that personality traits such as openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness are associated with higher levels of environmental citizenship behaviour among students. Age also influences environmental engagement, suggesting that maturity may strengthen environmental responsibility. Studies involving university employees further reveal that individuals’ self construal, how they define themselves in relation to others, affects their environmental engagement. Individuals with independent self construal tend to initiate environmental actions and assist others, while those with interdependent self construals are more inclined toward collective environmental participation.
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Another major contribution highlighted in the lecture is the development of indigenous measurement tools for environmental behaviour research. To address the absence of reliable instruments, the Littering Attitude Scale (LAS) and the Littering Prevention Behaviour Scale (LPBS) were developed and validated using Nigerian samples. These instruments provide reliable frameworks for measuring environmental attitudes and behaviours, enabling researchers and policymakers to design interventions and evaluate behavioural change.
Overall, the lecture demonstrates that responsible environmental behaviour emerges from the interaction of psychological factors, social norms, institutional structures, and environmental contexts. By integrating these elements, environmental psychology can move beyond abstract discussions of environmental concern toward practical strategies for behavioural change.
The central conclusion is that if human behaviour contributes to environmental degradation, then behavioural change must form the foundation of environmental solutions. Social psychology therefore offers valuable tools for understanding how environmental behaviours develop and how they can be transformed through targeted interventions, institutional support, and community engagement.
Recommendations:
•Integrate Behaviour Focused Environmental Education
Environmental education programmes should move beyond awareness creation to actively promote responsible environmental behaviour through behavioural modelling, habit change strategies, and goal setting techniques.
•Leverage Psychosocial and Future Oriented Factors
Interventions should strengthen environmental self efficacy, altruism, self regulation, and future oriented thinking. Eco anxiety should be managed constructively to encourage action rather than disengagement.
•Promote Organisational Citizenship Behaviour for the Environment
Universities and organisations should create platforms for eco initiatives, peer led environmental activities, and participatory environmental decision making.
•Strengthen Infrastructure and Multi Level Engagement
Government agencies should provide accessible waste disposal facilities, enforce anti littering laws, and collaborate with community organisations and private waste management companies to improve environmental services.
•Use Contextually Validated Measurement Tools
Researchers and policymakers should adopt validated instruments such as the Littering Attitude Scale (LAS) and Littering Prevention Behaviour Scale (LPBS) to evaluate environmental behaviour and intervention programmes.
•Establish an Interdisciplinary Centre for Environmental Sustainability
Universities should establish centres that bring together scholars from multiple disciplines to address environmental challenges through research, education, and policy engagement.
•Develop Community Based Recycling Initiatives
Innovative recycling initiatives such as incentive based waste exchange programmes (“garbage supermarkets”) should be implemented to encourage responsible waste disposal and community participation.
