End of study project
During our last year of master degree, we had to choose a subject of research for our end of study projet to conduct on our own. I took interest in sustainable development and more specifically in sustainable behaviors and why people won’t change their habits. This is a preview of m
Sustainable development has been for the past 40 years the subject everyone talks about. Since the first picture of our planet from space was taken in 1968, we have somehow realized how fragile our planet is and we started to care about it. But despite this awakening, our issues with pollution haven’t gotten better, it even got worse.If you look at the «Earth Overshoot Day», the day when we have officially used all the renewable resources of the year, we can see that this day occurred on the 23rd of December in 1970, and on the 2nd of August last year. That is why I decided to focus on sustainable development for my end of study project.
As I researched, I realised that although sustainability has become a subject that attracts both economical and political fields, it has failed to truly impact the population. So what if we were part of the problem. We face each day, and without noticing, many psychological obstacles, that stop us from changing our behaviors. From social dilemmas to a loss of contact with nature, the evolution of our society has allowed us to mistreat nature and lead us to the situation we face.Those obstacles, which are in the end simple automatic reactions to our daily life, could as well be used as ways to change our behaviors.
This leads me to this project, the idea here was to engaged users from two levels. A psychological one, where I would induce better behaviors through small incentives, which were inspired by nudges, that would push the user to change its behavior without being too engaged. The second level is a sociological one. Through an app the idea was to engage the user on a social level by giving him goals and challenge through a community.
