IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v19y2022i23p15431-d980031.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Influence of Appeal Type and Message Framing on Residents’ Intent to Engage in Pro-Environmental Behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Jia Wang

    (School of Media Studies and Humanities, Zhejiang University City College, Hangzhou 310015, China)

  • Yangli Gu

    (School of Media Studies and Humanities, Zhejiang University City College, Hangzhou 310015, China)

  • Haohang Xin

    (School of Media Studies and Humanities, Zhejiang University City College, Hangzhou 310015, China)

  • Xiaomei Wang

    (School of Media Studies and Humanities, Zhejiang University City College, Hangzhou 310015, China)

Abstract

In this intervention study, we examined the effects and psychological processes of different types of messaging intended to promote waste-separation behavior on the intent of residents to separate household waste and to engage in other pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs). Based on three studies (one survey with 76 residents and two experiments with 446 residents) in China, our results revealed that environmental appeals increased residents’ intent to separate waste and engage in other PEBs, whereas monetary incentives had no effect. Although the main effects of the framing of messages on the intent to separate waste and other PEBs were not significant, we found an interactive effect of appeal type and message framing. When matched with loss framing, an environmental appeal indirectly generated a stronger positive impact by stimulating an individual’s environmental risk perception. When monetary incentives matched with loss framing, individual pro-environmental identity weakened, thereby inhibiting the positive impact on intent to separate waste. With this study, we provide important theoretical support for the selection and optimization of waste-separation intervention strategies and guidance for persuading residents to engage in more PEBs.

Suggested Citation

  • Jia Wang & Yangli Gu & Haohang Xin & Xiaomei Wang, 2022. "Influence of Appeal Type and Message Framing on Residents’ Intent to Engage in Pro-Environmental Behavior," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-27, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:23:p:15431-:d:980031
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/23/15431/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/23/15431/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thøgersen, John & Noblet, Caroline, 2012. "Does green consumerism increase the acceptance of wind power?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 854-862.
    2. Blair Kidwell & Adam Farmer & David M. Hardesty, 2013. "Getting Liberals and Conservatives to Go Green: Political Ideology and Congruent Appeals," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 40(2), pages 350-367.
    3. Tiefenbeck, Verena & Staake, Thorsten & Roth, Kurt & Sachs, Olga, 2013. "For better or for worse? Empirical evidence of moral licensing in a behavioral energy conservation campaign," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 160-171.
    4. Olya Bullard & Rajesh Manchanda, 2013. "Do sustainable products make us prevention focused?," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 177-189, June.
    5. Chen, Ming-Yi, 2016. "Consumer response to health product communication: The role of perceived product efficacy," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(9), pages 3251-3260.
    6. Sonia Akter & Jeff Bennett, 2011. "Household perceptions of climate change and preferences for mitigation action: the case of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in Australia," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 109(3), pages 417-436, December.
    7. Moon, Sangkil & Bergey, Paul K. & Bove, Liliana L. & Robinson, Stefanie, 2016. "Message framing and individual traits in adopting innovative, sustainable products (ISPs): Evidence from biofuel adoption," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(9), pages 3553-3560.
    8. Ellingsen, Tore & Johannesson, Magnus & Mollerstrom, Johanna & Munkhammar, Sara, 2012. "Social framing effects: Preferences or beliefs?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 117-130.
    9. Steinhorst, Julia & Matthies, Ellen, 2016. "Monetary or environmental appeals for saving electricity? –Potentials for spillover on low carbon policy acceptability," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 335-344.
    10. Nick Nash & Lorraine Whitmarsh & Stuart Capstick & Tom Hargreaves & Wouter Poortinga & Gregory Thomas & Elena Sautkina & Dimitrios Xenias, 2017. "Climate‐relevant behavioral spillover and the potential contribution of social practice theory," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 8(6), November.
    11. Ebru Dogan & Jan Bolderdijk & Linda Steg, 2014. "Making Small Numbers Count: Environmental and Financial Feedback in Promoting Eco-driving Behaviours," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 413-422, September.
    12. Bullard, Olya & Penner, Sara, 2017. "A regulatory-focused perspective on philanthropy: Promotion focus motivates giving to prevention-framed causes," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 173-180.
    13. Van de Velde, Liesbeth & Verbeke, Wim & Popp, Michael & Van Huylenbroeck, Guido, 2010. "The importance of message framing for providing information about sustainability and environmental aspects of energy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(10), pages 5541-5549, October.
    14. Jingling Chen & Rob van Tulder & Tao Eric Hu & Thorben Kwakkenbos, 2020. "Why People Do Not Keep Their Promise: Understanding the Pro-Environmental Behavior in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-18, August.
    15. Shimpei Iwasaki & Samuel Franssens & Siegfried Dewitte & Florian Lange, 2021. "Evaluating the Effect of Framing Energy Consumption in Terms of Losses versus Gains on Air-Conditioner Use: A Field Experiment in a Student Dormitory in Japan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-9, April.
    16. Ani Qi & Zeyu Ji & Yuanchao Gong & Bo Yang & Yan Sun, 2022. "The Impact of the Gain-Loss Frame on College Students’ Willingness to Participate in the Individual Low-Carbon Behavior Rewarding System (ILBRS): The Mediating Role of Environmental Risk Perception," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(17), pages 1-12, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hongsha Wang & Qihui Chen & Bhagyashree Katare, 2023. "Nudging Chinese consumers to embrace sustainable milk consumption: How should information be provided?," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(S1), pages 1512-1534, December.
    2. Magnus Bergquist & Andreas Nilsson & Emma Ejelöv, 2019. "Contest-Based and Norm-Based Interventions: (How) Do They Differ in Attitudes, Norms, and Behaviors?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-17, January.
    3. Gómez, Patricia & Shaikh, Nazrul I. & Erkoc, Murat, 2024. "Continuous improvement in the efficient use of energy in office buildings through peers effects," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 360(C).
    4. Chad M. Baum & Christian Gross, 2017. "Sustainability policy as if people mattered: developing a framework for environmentally significant behavioral change," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 53-95, April.
    5. McCarthy, Breda, 2024. "Moral licensing and habits: Do solar households make negligent choices?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    6. Wang, Jianming & Li, Yongqiang & He, Zhengxia & Gao, Jian & Wang, Jianguo, 2022. "Scale framing, benefit framing and their interaction effects on energy-saving behaviors: Evidence from urban residents of China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    7. Ferreira, Larice Simone de Oliveira & Silveira,Rodrigo Lanna Franco da & Maia, Alexandre Gori, 2024. "Willingness to Pay and Framing Effect: Evidence from Organic Tomatoes," International Journal of Food and Agricultural Economics (IJFAEC), Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University, Department of Economics and Finance, vol. 12(2), April.
    8. Karen Page Winterich & Rebecca Walker Reczek & Tamar Makov, 2024. "How lack of knowledge on emissions and psychological biases deter consumers from taking effective action to mitigate climate change," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 52(5), pages 1475-1494, October.
    9. Barkemeyer, Ralf & Young, C. William & Chintakayala, Phani Kumar & Owen, Anne, 2023. "Eco-labels, conspicuous conservation and moral licensing: An indirect behavioural rebound effect," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 204(PA).
    10. Goff, Sandra H. & Waring, Timothy M. & Noblet, Caroline L., 2017. "Does Pricing Nature Reduce Monetary Support for Conservation?: Evidence From Donation Behavior in an Online Experiment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 119-126.
    11. Li Yan & Hean Tat Keh & Xiaoyu Wang, 2021. "Powering Sustainable Consumption: The Roles of Green Consumption Values and Power Distance Belief," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 169(3), pages 499-516, March.
    12. Cha, Min-kyeong & Struthers, Cory L. & Brown, Marilyn A. & Kale, Snehal & Chapman, Oliver, 2024. "Toward residential decarbonization: Analyzing social-psychological drivers of household co-adoption of rooftop solar, electric vehicles, and efficient HVAC systems in Georgia, U.S," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).
    13. Picard, Julien & Banerjee, Sanchayan, 2023. "Behavioural spillovers unpacked: estimating the side effects of social norm nudges," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 120566, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    14. McAndrew, Ryan & Mulcahy, Rory & Gordon, Ross & Russell-Bennett, Rebekah, 2021. "Household energy efficiency interventions: A systematic literature review," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    15. Claudia Arias & Carlos A. Trujillo, 2020. "Perceived Consumer Effectiveness as A Trigger of Behavioral Spillover Effects: A path towards Recycling," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-17, May.
    16. Shu Yang & Peng Cheng & Shanyong Wang & Jun Li, 2021. "Towards Sustainable Cities: The Spillover Effects of Waste-Sorting Policies on Sustainable Consumption," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(20), pages 1-16, October.
    17. Kareklas, Ioannis & Muehling, Darrel D. & King, Skyler, 2019. "The effect of color and self-view priming in persuasive communications," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 33-49.
    18. Ek, Claes, 2017. "Some causes are more equal than others? The effect of similarity on substitution in charitable giving," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 45-62.
    19. Marie-Laure Cabon-Dhersin & Nathalie Etchart-Vincent, 2013. "Wording and gender effects in a Game of Chicken. An explorative experimental study," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-00796708, HAL.
    20. Röttgers, Dirk, 2016. "Conditional cooperation, context and why strong rules work — A Namibian common-pool resource experiment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 21-31.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:23:p:15431-:d:980031. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.