Behavior Changes Attitudes

Garrison Institute board chairman Jonathan Rose is quoted in an interesting piece by Barry Boyce in the November 2011 issue of Shambhala Sun. “The Joy of Living Green” reports on the new environmentalism that recognizes that what you do counts more than what you believe, and seeks therefore to change how we behave day in and day out, and how we see the world. In the article, Rose says, “Environmental issues come from separating things into lots of pieces. We make economic decisions as if they weren’t ecological decisions. We need to see the interrelationships and shift our mental models of the world from linear to holistic and interconnected…. We now know… that behavior changes attitudes more readily than the other way around. If you coax someone into riding a bike, recycling, or rooftop farming, the physical act reshapes their brain in a way that starts changing their attitude…”