Fear-Arousing and Empathy-Arousing Appeals to Help: The Pathos of Persuasion

Articles
Shelton, M. L., & Rogers, R. W. (1981). Fear-arousing and empathy-arousing appeals to help: The pathos of persuasion.. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 11, 4, 366-378.
Tested the proposition that the components of a fear appeal, which persuade people to protect themselves, are the same components that persuade them to protect others. Films showi…

Using Social Cognition and Persuasion to Promote Energy Conservation: A Quasi-Experiment

Articles
Gonzales, M. H., Aronson, E., & Costanzo, M. A. (1988). Using social cognition and persuasion to promote energy conservation: A quasi-experiment. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 18, 12 (Pt 2), 1049-1066.
Examined whether the effectiveness of a residential conservation service home energy audit program could be improved by training auditors to use social-psychological principles du…

Promoting Source Reduction Behavior: The Role of Motivational Information

Articles
De Young, R., Duncan, A., Frank, J., Gill, N., Rothman, S., Shenot, J., Shotkin, A. & Zweizig, M. (1993). Promoting source reduction behavior: The role of motivational information. Environment and Behavior, 25, 1, 70-85.
Investigated the degree to which source reduction (SR) behavior in households could be enhanced using economic and environmental rationales among 103 grocery shoppers. An educat…

Energy Conservation Behavior: The Difficult Path from Information to Action

Articles
Costanzo, M., Archer, D., Aronson, E., & Pettigrew, T. (1986). Energy conservation behavior: The difficult path from information to action. American Psychologist, 41, 5, 521-528.
Presents a social-psychological model of energy-use behavior that draws on behavioral and social research to explain influence processes and behavioral change related to energy co…

Using Tailored Information and Public Commitment to Improve the Environmental Quality of Farm Lands: An Example from the Netherlands

Articles
Lokhorst, A.M., van Dijk, J., Staats, H., van Dijk, E., & de Snoo, G. (2010). Using tailored information and public commitment to improve the environmental quality of farm lands: An example from the Netherlands. Human Ecology, 38(1), 113-122.
By adopting nature conservation practices, farmers can enhance the environmental quality and biodiversity of their land. In this exploratory study, a behavioral intervention that …

An Introduction to Deviance-Regulation Theory: The Effect of Behavioral Norms on Message Framing

Articles
Blanton, H., Stuart, A., & VandenEijnden, R. (2001). An introduction to deviance-regulation theory: The effect of behavioral norms on message framing. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27(7), 848-858. doi:10.1177/0146167201277007.
Introduces a social judgment framework the authors term deviance-regulation theory. This theory proposes that people self-regulate more on the basis of the perceived social conseq…

Crafting Normative Messages to Protect the Environment

Articles
Cialdini, R. (2003). Crafting normative messages to protect the environment. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 12(4), 105-109. doi:10.1111/1467-8721.01242.
It is widely recognized that communications that activate social norms can be effective in producing societally beneficial conduct. Not so well recognized are the circumstances un…

Validation, Persuasion and Recycling: Capitalizing on the Social Ecology of Newspaper Use

Articles
Werner, Carol M.; Byerly, Sari; White, Paul H.; Kieffer, Matthew (2004). Validation, Persuasion and Recycling: Capitalizing on the Social Ecology of Newspaper Use. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 26, 2, 183-198.
Two experiments used clinical validation to increase scrutiny of messages posted in public settings. The first experiment used a 2 (validation: no/yes) × 2 (persuasion: none/"it i…

Stand Against Corona Pledge and Study Results on Prosocial Messaging to Motivate Collective Action

Forums
Liz Foote Maui May 28, 2020 1:40 am
Did anyone see, or participate in, the #StandAgainstCorona online pledge? So far over 2700 people have taken the pledge. It was actually created as an field experiment to test dif…

Mask Use, Messaging, and Social Norms

Forums
Liz Foote Maui Jun 3, 2020 1:58 am
As someone who’s had an N-95 mask in my carry on flight kit for years (alongside my spray bottle of 70% rubbing alcohol…), I have been really interested in following all the messa…

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