SynthesisConservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology2023
Systematic review of conservation interventions to promote voluntary behavior change.
Synthesis in Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 55 citations in OpenAlex.
- The evidence base for ranger patrol effectiveness in conservation and how to improve it.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Pooled it
- Systematic review of conservation interventions to promote voluntary behavior change.Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · 2023Pooled it
- Exploring legal- and health-risk messaging to reduce demand for elephant skin.Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · 2026Trial
- Evaluating synthetic substitutes to reduce illegal harvesting and support species recovery.Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · 2026Article
- Behavioral shifts mask the success of legislation and outreach for endangered species recovery.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Behavioral Plasticity of Rewilding Milu in Mountainous Region of Northern China.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- Barriers to public engagement with biodiversity conservation.Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · 2025Article
- Reconnection with nature through empathy: rewiring people and animals by assessing zoo visitors' connection to species and the need for their conservation.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Ocean connectedness, experiences, and stewardship: a qualitative study of American adults.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- The Sixth Mass Extinction and Amphibian Species Sustainability Through Reproduction and Advanced Biotechnologies, Biobanking of Germplasm and Somatic Cells, and Conservation Breeding Programs (RBCs).Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024Review
- Engaging internal and external audiences to develop and promote zoo-based conservation efforts.PloS one · 2024Article
- Advancing interdisciplinary science for disrupting wildlife trafficking networks.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Personalised ecology and the future of biodiversity.Cambridge prisms. Extinction · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 4 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Understanding human behavior is vital to developing interventions that effectively lead to proenvironmental behavior change, whether the focus is at the individual or societal level. However, interventions in many fields have historically lacked robust forms of evaluation, which makes it hard to be confident that these conservation interventions have successfully helped protect the environment. We conducted a systematic review to assess how effective nonpecuniary and nonregulatory interventions have been in changing environmental behavior. We applied the Office of Health Assessment and Translation systematic review methodology. We started with more than 300,000 papers and reports returned by our search terms and after critical appraisal of quality identified 128 individual studies that merited inclusion in the review. We classified interventions by thematic area, type of intervention, the number of times audiences were exposed to interventions, and the length of time interventions ran. Most studies reported a positive effect (n = 96). The next most common outcome was no effect (n = 28). Few studies reported negative (n = 1) or mixed (n = 3) effects. Education, prompts, and feedback interventions resulted in positive behavior change. Combining multiple interventions was the most effective. Neither exposure duration nor frequency affected the likelihood of desired behavioral change. Comparatively few studies tested the effects of voluntary interventions on non-Western populations (n = 17) or measured actual ecological outcome behavior (n = 1). Similarly, few studies examined conservation devices (e.g., energy-efficient stoves) (n = 9) and demonstrations (e.g., modeling the desired behavior) (n = 5). There is a clear need to both improve the quality of the impact evaluation conducted and the reporting standards for intervention results.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.