How can cognitive dissonance be used to bring about attitude change with regard to environmental issues?

Read then answer

Dissonance can also make changing behavior difficult because

a new behavior may be inconsistent with existing beliefs about why one follows their usual

routine. But dissonance may motivate behavior change in a direction that is more consistent

with one's attitudes. This is the route that many environmental advocates want to foster

by alerting people to the disjuncture between their pro-environmental attitudes and their

anti-environmental behavior. Cognitive dissonance may also be used to bring about attitude change. If behavior is

changed first, the attitude may change to become consistent with the behavior. In a study

by Werner et al. (1995), people who participated in a curbside recycling program developed

more positive attitudes after four months than those who did not participate, even though there were no apparent attitudinal differences between the groups before the program was implemented. Presumably, dissonance encouraged the attitudes to shift in order to be more consistent with the behavior. A small incentive may be more effective at inducing dissonance. As noted earlier, for a behavior change to last, a person must attribute his or her behavior change to the self; a large incentive is so clearly responsible for counter-attitudinal behavior that the person experiences little or no dissonance. Greater dissonance is also generated when a public action or statement is contrary to one's private thoughts, for example, when a commitment is written and displayed. If the new action or belief goes contrary to one's reference group (perhaps one's family), who give reasons for not joining, then there is an even stronger force to internalize the choice as one's own.