Psychology explains why people litter even when they know it is wrong: A 2022 study finds good attitudes may not be enough, while personal control, connection to nature and social pressure shape the decision to stop

Psychology of littering: People generally know that littering is harmful. They know plastic wrappers, bottles, cigarette butts, and food waste do not belong on roads, in parks or in public spaces. Yet littering continues.

So why do people throw rubbish on the ground even when they know they shouldn't? A 2022 psychology study of littering behavior suggests the answer may be more complicated than simply blaming ignorance or a lack of environmental awareness. Instead, the decision to litter or stop littering can be shaped by a combination of personal control, emotional connection with nature, and powerful social cues about what other people consider normal.

The study found that two factors stood out in predicting people's intention to stop littering: perceived behavioral control, whether people feel they can actually control their own behavior, and connectedness to nature, or the emotional feeling of being connected to the natural world.


Surprisingly, simply having a positive attitude toward stopping littering was not enough. The findings come from the research paper “An explorative study of psychological and social factors impacting littering behavior in Vietnam,” published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology on December 9, 2022. The study was led by Anran Zhang, with researchers Bo Pang, Jeawon Kim, Tuyet-Mai Nguyen and Phong Tuan Nham.

It may not be about whether you care but whether you feel you can act

One of the strongest psychological factors identified by the researchers was perceived behavioral control (PBC). In simple terms, this refers to whether a person believes they have the ability and control to perform a particular behavior. Applied to littering, it means whether someone feels that not throwing rubbish on the ground is something they can easily choose and control.

The researchers surveyed 623 adults in Hanoi, primarily students aged over 18, using an online questionnaire. They examined cognitive, emotional, social and environmental factors that could influence a person's intention to stop littering.

The results showed that perceived behavioral control had a significant positive relationship with the intention to stop littering. That finding points to an important psychological distinction: telling someone that littering is bad may not be as effective as making them feel capable of changing their own behavior.

The study's own measurement questions captured this idea directly, asking participants whether they believed they could “easily stop littering” and whether stopping littering was “mostly up to” them.

Feeling connected to nature also mattered

The second major factor was more emotional. People who felt a stronger connection with nature were more likely to express an intention to stop littering.

The researchers describe connectedness to nature as a person's cognitive, emotional and experiential connection with the natural world. The idea goes beyond simply knowing facts about environmental damage.

It is about whether someone feels that they are, in some sense, part of nature, and that their own welfare is connected to the welfare of the natural world.

Participants were asked about feelings such as whether they felt close to nature, whether they considered themselves part of it and whether they believed their own welfare was linked to the welfare of the natural world.

The statistical analysis found a significant positive relationship between connectedness to nature and the intention to stop littering.

That could help explain why environmental messages based purely on information sometimes struggle to change behavior. Knowing that litter damages the environment and emotionally feeling connected to that environment may not be the same psychological experience.

The surprising finding: A good attitude was not enough

Perhaps the most striking result was what the researchers did not find. The study found that a person's attitude toward stopping littering did not significantly predict their intention to stop littering across the overall sample.

In other words, thinking that stopping littering is good, wise or beneficial did not automatically translate into a stronger intention to change behavior.

The researchers noted that this result differed from some earlier research on environmentally responsible behavior.

Their explanation points toward an important real-world problem: people may have the right attitude but still face situational barriers. High levels of littering around them and limited availability of trash bins, the researchers suggested, could make it harder for positive attitudes to turn into actual behavioral change.

This creates what could be called one of the central paradoxes of littering psychology: You can believe littering is wrong and still live in a situation where you continue to do it or fail to change.

What other people do can change what we do

Littering is also a deeply social behavior. The researchers examined two different kinds of social norms.

Injunctive norms concern what people believe society approves or disapproves of. For example, would the people important to me disapprove if I littered?

Descriptive norms, meanwhile, concern what people see others actually doing. For example: Do people around me usually litter, or do they dispose of their waste properly?

The study found that both types of social norms could change how psychological factors influenced the intention to stop littering.

This is important because human beings do not make decisions in isolation.

A person standing in a clean park surrounded by people using bins receives a very different psychological signal from someone standing in a place where rubbish is scattered everywhere, and everyone appears to throw waste on the ground.

The researchers found that people appeared sensitive to these social cues. Their conclusion was that littering interventions should move beyond approaches focused only on the individual and should also consider the wider social environment and the behavior people observe around them.

Environmental awareness alone may not solve the problem

Another notable finding involved environmental consciousness. The researchers examined whether people who were more concerned about environmental protection would be more strongly motivated to stop littering.

But the overall results did not support environmental consciousness as a significant moderator across the model. In their discussion, the researchers argued that this finding adds to evidence about the mixed effectiveness of education-only approaches.

Their conclusion was particularly important: education can provide knowledge, but knowledge by itself may not necessarily become the psychological force that determines behavior.

That means anti-littering campaigns may face a fundamental limitation if they rely only on messages explaining why litter is harmful.

People may already know. The bigger challenge may be changing what they feel capable of doing, how they emotionally relate to the environment, and what they believe is socially normal.

The psychology behind a piece of rubbish on the ground

The research suggests that littering should not be understood as a simple choice between environmentally responsible and irresponsible people. Instead, the behavior appears to emerge from an interaction between multiple psychological and social forces.

The researchers wrote that littering is a complex social problem influenced by multiple interacting factors, rather than something that can be explained through a single cause.

That has major implications for attempts to keep cities, streets, parks and public spaces clean. Providing bins may matter. Making bins accessible may matter. But psychology may matter too.

Campaigns could potentially focus on messages that increase people's sense of control, such as the idea that not littering is an easy choice they can personally make. They could also work to strengthen people's connection to the natural environment and create clear social expectations that littering is neither normal nor acceptable.

The researchers suggested that interventions could include prompts designed to strengthen perceived behavioral control, such as messages that people can control whether they litter. They also proposed experiences that could help strengthen emotional connectedness to nature.

So, why do people litter?

The study does not offer one simple answer. But its findings suggest that the psychology of littering may come down to a combination of three questions: Do I feel that I can control this behavior? Do I feel emotionally connected to what my actions might damage? And what does everyone around me seem to be doing?

The answers may matter more than simply knowing that throwing a wrapper on the ground is wrong.

And that may be the real challenge for anti-littering campaigns: changing behavior requires more than information. It may require changing how people see themselves, their environment and the social world around them.