ABSTRACT
It has been well documented that for most people, the media is a prominent and integral source for acquiring information about climate change (e.g. Boykoff and Rajan, 2007; Ungar, 2000). Moreover, the way that information about climate change is framed and communicated can significantly influence the public’s knowledge, attitude and perception (e.g. Sampei and Aoyagi-Usui, 2009; Sharples, 2010; Stamm et al, 2002; Weingart et al, 2000). As a result, a popular strategy for inducing behavioural change has been the deployment of persuasion techniques embedded in communication strategies. To this extent, a major area of concern is the apparent disparity between public communication and the lack of actualised behavioural change observed in the general public (Whitmarsh et al., 2008). While public polls often indicate that people express general awareness and concern (e.g. GlobeScan, 2000, 2006), individuals remain reluctant to take personal action. This has also been dubbed the “value-action” gap (e.g. Kollmuss and Agyeman, 2002), “attitude-behaviouf’ gap or ”intention-behaviouf’ gap (e.g. Sheeran, 2002) depending on where the focus is applied. Traditionally, most communication campaigns have tried to address this gap by providing people with more information, a strategy that has become better known as the “information-deficit” model of human behaviour. In fact, a content analysis by Devine-Wright (2004) suggests that a deficit model of human behaviour has played a predominant role in past public behavioural change campaigns and continues to do so. On the whole, public inter- ventional campaigns only seem to produce modest behavioural changes (Steg, 2008). For example, a 1999 mass public media campaign in the UK: “Are you doing your bit” only elicited small consequent changes in attitudes and behaviours (O’Neill and Hulme, 2009). Similar disappointing findings have been observed in The Netherlands (e.g. Staats et al., 1996). While new communication strategies have been undertaken in recent years, more substantial analyses of such campaigns often remain elusive (i.e. those that go beyond media hits and broad-opinion brushes), making it hard to identify benefits and limitations (Moser, 2010; Steg and Vlek, 2009). Recent research is increasingly pointing out that communication interventions need to be made more locally relevant and designed in such a way that they meaningfully involve and engage the public with climate change (Moser 2006; O’Neill and Nicholson-Cole, 2009). Moser (2006,p. 3) defines effective communication as: “any form of public engagement that actually facilitates an intended behavioural, organizational, political or other social change consistent with identified mitigation and adaptation goals”. While there certainly has been no shortage in the number of publications that offer “practical” shortlists for effective climate change communication (CCCAG, 2010; CRED, 2009; Futerra, 2005; Moser, 2010), there is currently no systematic overview of the theoretical and empirical pathways that explain how to get from merely communicating information to actually changing people’s behaviour. Moreover, while behavioural change is of course, to a certain extent, a practical matter, a more theory-driven perspective is generally welcomed by behavioural researchers (Steg and Vlek, 2009). Attaining a more holistic understanding of the link between designing persuasive messages, the communication and processing of that information on one hand and eliciting behavioural change on the other inevitably begs for the integration of insights from all relevant disciplines that deal with the subject matter. Indeed, integrative theoretical research can help synthesise, connect and combine dispersed research findings from various disciplines to advance new insights and improve current knowledge and understanding. Yet, in order to validate the value of a new integrative communication model, it is pivotal to first discuss the theoretical and empirical evidence of past models as well as their limitations. In an attempt to provide a more systematic overview, the current chapter delineates the “evolution” of public climate change campaigns according to the following typology:
The “cognitive-analytical” type (consistent with the traditional knowledge- attitude-behaviour model);
The “affective-experiential’ type (congruent with the ”risk-as-feelings“ framework and the use of negative emotional appeals such as fear and guilt messaging); and
The “social-normative” type (consistent with the “normative” paradigm — which seeks to leverage the persuasive potential of social and moral norms on behaviour).
In addition, three major shortcomings of past and current public communication interventions are identified:Most public interventions ought to be, but are not designed in an integrative manner;
Current campaigns do not sufficiently target specific behaviours nor pay sufficient attention to the psychological determinants of the behaviours that they are trying to change; and
Public campaigns often fail to make the climate change context explicit.
In the first section of this chapter, the theoretical and empirical evidence for each of these three public communication strategies is critically discussed. In the following section, a more integrated understanding of human behaviour and decision-making is advanced by looking at the combined influence of cognitive, experiential and normative influences on behaviour. In addition, the importance of understanding the psychological determinants of environmental behaviour is outlined for both, the communication process as well as its integral role in eliciting behavioural change. Finally, a new integrative conceptual framework is proposed in an attempt to advance current understanding of how to transition from merely communicating information about climate change to actually changing individual behaviour.