The Persuasive Route to Sustainable Mobility: Elaboration Likelihood Model and Emotions predict Implicit Attitudes

Abstract

Persuasive communication campaigns are often used to promote proenvironmental actions, even though their effectiveness has been mixed. Previous research has tested cognitive-based models in explaining proenvironmental choice, but few studies have examined the potential impact of emotional dimensions. This experimental study tests the persuasive effect of argument quality, source expertise, and emotions on the implicit attitudes toward sustainable travel choices. This was a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects research design with an additional measured variable of involvement with the topic of sustainable transport. A video including the experimental manipulations was presented, followed by the Implicit Association Test (IAT). Consistent with the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), in the case of high involvement, implicit attitudes were more positive in the condition of high-quality arguments, while in case of low involvement, implicit attitudes were more positive in the condition of high source expertise. In addition, the main effect of anticipated negative emotions was significant.

The Individual Green-Washing Effect in E-Mobility: Emotional Evaluations of Electric and Gasoline Cars

“…Furthermore, three questions (e.g., "I am planning to buy an electric car in the future") were asked regarding the future behavior (reliability measured with Cronbach's alpha = 0.78), and two questions regarding the past behavior (e.g., "How often did you drive with an electric car in the past?") with respect to electric mobility (reliability measured with Cronbach's alpha = 0.43), which is not sufficient (Manca et al, 2019). The participants had to answer on a five-point Likert scale from "unlikely" to "very likely."…”

“…To support the acceptance of promising ecological transportation solutions, it is important to investigate the relevant factors for sustainable behavior. A first study on sustainable transportation behavior has been conducted by Manca et al (2019) . They identified past sustainable behaviors, attitudes, and emotions as the key determinants of pro-environmental behavior: for the change in travel behavior, habit deactivation is a necessary but not a sufficient condition ( Thøgersen and Møller, 2008 ).…”

“…This gives a hint that attitudes and emotions do play an important role in behavioral change. While investigating the effect of argument quality on explicit and implicit attitudes of sustainable transportation, Manca et al (2019) carved out the following picture: if the participants were highly involved in the topic of sustainable transportation, implicit attitudes were more positive in the condition where the arguments came from high source expertise (e.g., from a Nobel Prize winner), which is in contrast to the implicit attitudes of participants with low involvement. This study highlighted that the elaboration process for changing attitudes is driven by affective and cognitive aspects.…”

Attitude Toward Sustainable Transport as a Function of Source and Argument Reliability and Anticipated Emotions

“…Research on environmental issues underlined the effectiveness of messages tailored to the particular concerns of the audience in increasing the personal relevance of the messages and, in turn, in addressing recipients toward the central-route elaboration [11]. Empirical evidence of the effectiveness of the ELM has also been pointed out in several advertising contexts and consumer behaviors [12][13][14][15].Some criticism about ELM pointed out the role of further (neglected) variables in influencing the elaboration [16]. Petty et al [17] clarified that, indeed, other variables besides involvement can affect the elaboration process.Currently, in fact, communication campaigns hardly result in behavior changes.…”

“…Research on environmental issues underlined the effectiveness of messages tailored to the particular concerns of the audience in increasing the personal relevance of the messages and, in turn, in addressing recipients toward the central-route elaboration [11]. Empirical evidence of the effectiveness of the ELM has also been pointed out in several advertising contexts and consumer behaviors [12][13][14][15].…”