What Sells Better in Green Communications: Fear or Hope? It Depends on Whether the Issue Is Global or Local

This research compared the effectiveness of fear and hope appeals in green communications when the issue was framed as either global or local.

MANAGEMENT SLANT

  • Fear and hope are opposing emotions that are employed frequently in social marketing contexts; this research compares the different consumer responses evoked by these appeals.
  • Fear appeals have the advantage when the environmental issue is framed as global, whereas hope appeals are more effective when the issue is framed as local.
  • Two experiments included various objective and subjective measures, such as eye-tracking movements measured by fixation duration, self-reports, and actual donation amount.
  • Perspective taking is the underlying mechanism for the moderating effects between emotional appeal and issue framing on the dependent measures above.

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