Persuasive communication and proenvironmental behaviours: How message tailoring and message framing can improve the integration of behaviours through self-determined motivation.

Abstract

Public concern about environmental issues has grown substantially in the last two decades. As a consequence, the promotion of environmentally conscious behaviours that are integrated in people's lifestyle has become an ongoing and important challenge. Persuasive messages are often perceived as the first step in efforts to motivate people to change a specific behaviour. In this article, the authors propose that (a) tailoring messages according to proposed processes underlying behaviour change (i.e., being aware of a problem, deciding what to do, initiating, and implementing a behaviour); and (b) framing these messages in terms of whether they serve intrinsic goals (i.e., health, well-being) as opposed to extrinsic goals (i.e., make or save money, comfort) could make messages more effective by progressively increasing the level of self-determined motivation of the targeted population.

What Motivates Green Living? A Qualitative Investigation of Sustainable Life Choices

“…This stands in contrast to the findings indicating that threatening knowledge usually does not motivate change (Pelletier and Sharp 2008). Providing information is also decision-makers' most frequently employed tactic for motivating sustainable change.…”

“…In this study, climate change was perceived as a dangerous threat, which the informants felt a personal responsibility to counteract. Self-determination theory (SDT) predicts that internalizing sustainable behavior is an active but gradual transformation of socially valued behavior into personally endorsed activities (Pelletier and Sharp 2008). This fits with the informants' account of sustainable actions previously requiring self-control which became intrinsically motivated.…”

“…It seems as the change our informants made and their motivation to continue their lifestyle is fed by characteristics in their daily life that meet criteria SDT predicts will enhance motivation (Deci and Ryan 2008a, b). In order to be able to act upon a problem, you must be aware that it exists, and it should be relevant to your own life (Pelletier and Sharp 2008). In this study, climate change was perceived as a dangerous threat, which the informants felt a personal responsibility to counteract.…”

“…This fits with the informants' account of sustainable actions previously requiring self-control which became intrinsically motivated. According to SDT, sustainable behavior is more likely to become internalized if people are given a good rationale for the behavior, shown its effectiveness, and get to choose between different ways of displaying the behavior (Pelletier and Sharp 2008). These factors seem present as the informants are competent on climate change, have easy access to sustainable alternatives, and feel supported in living sustainably in their own way.…”

“…Participants' descriptions of how they perceive the movements they are part of may fit with this. Quite a few previous studies have applied SDT to investigate sustainable behavior (Hedlund-de Witt et al 2014;Pelletier and Sharp 2008;Schösler et al 2014). It looks as if factors that increase intrinsic and autonomous motivation in living sustainably are important for creating lasting changes.…”