A Research Proposal About The Comparison Of Pride Appeal And Guilt Appeal Regarding Climate Action In Australia Assignment Sample

1.0 Study Overview: A Research Proposal About The Comparison Of Pride Appeal And Guilt Appeal Regarding Climate Action In Australia

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The study is about comparing the impact of positive and negative emotional appeals regarding the demands of taking action against climate change. It is established by various previous articles and reports in various journals that if a comparison is being done between positive and negative emotional appeals for demanding any action against climate change. The negative or guilt appeal is more successful. The emotions of guilt or fear, and anger triggers more people to take action against climate change (Willis 2020). However, the literature section had some gaps, as those does not took into account the comparison of negative emotional appeals with that of the control set of collected data taken from the previously completed surveys. The researchers want to examine the facts of the greater impact of negative appeals in taking action against climate change.

2.0 Introduction

Climate change has a major impact on humanity that needs to be tackled and effectively dealt with. The impact of social and psychological changes among the people demanding action against climate change is huge. There is both positive and negative emotional appeals that can be employed for the action against climate change. This study aims to compare these two factors and their impact in dealing the climate change.

3.0 Background

The issue of climate change is one of the most serious challenges hacked by humanity on the planet Earth. There is an urgent need to effectively tackle the issue of climate change which requires both the change in human behaviours, as well as strict governmental policies. Citizens of Australia also face the same challenge and thus need to change their behaviours in wake of the climate change (Frontiersin.org). Several social psychologists in recent years had tried to determine the human behaviour that increases climate actions. These are emotional appeals include positive and negative emotions and have a profound impact on the climate action strategy of Australia.

3.0 Research Aim

The aim of the study is to compare how effective emotional appeal messages inducing pride appeal versus guilt appeal in increasing climate actions in Australia.

4.0 Research Hypothesis

H1: The impact of negative appeals in changing the social behaviour for demanding action against the climate change is more than the positive appeals.

H0: The impact of negative appeals in changing the social behaviour for demanding action against the climate change is less than the positive appeal.

5.0 Literature review

According to the author Yousuf et al. 2021, social media platforms are being one of the most effective and far-reaching platforms for reaching out with effective messages. The study examines about the effectiveness of appeals through social media platforms and their relative links with the positive, and negative messages or appeals. This study was to measure the impact of behavioural appeals. For a more effective comparison, a control set was also taken. These adds were vigorously shared in the internet as well as using various messenger applications like Facebook, Twitter, and Whatsapp among others (Yousuf et al. 2021). The appeals had reached over 21000 users, which constitutes a significant study number and their behavioural actions were being noted. The results indicated that a negative or guilt-driven appeal has more impact on the behavioural change of the studied individuals than those of positive or pride-driven appeals. They suggested that in all practical terms of environmental and charity context, the psychologists who want to engage on the matter for actions against the climate change through human behavioural changes should follow the negative appeals. This would put pressure on the governments of those countries as well to change their policies in response to the climate change.

According to the author Park 2020, this study was about the role of emotional appeals towards the Australian population for their increasing knowledge about climate change. The study adds to a growing set of literature that talks about the role of different celebrities and personalities who helped to grow an awareness about climate change. The study investigates about the effects of celebrity messaging in changing public attitudes and behaviours about climate change. The study also assesses the role of the parasocial relationship with the predictors and moderators of the impact regarding the involvement of celebrities (Park, 2020). The researchers had sent two different set of emotional appeals to the Australian public regarding the measurement of the impact of climate action by the government and to measure any change in the mood of the people. The different sets of emotional appeals include positive and negative appeals. The positive appeal includes the “pride” and the negative appeal includes the “guilt” factor of humans. The result of the study indicated that the appeal of fear or negative emotions was more effective than those of appeals of hope or positive emotions. Fear appeals could drive more people towards activism and demanding different actions against the climate change by the government. But, the study also found that emotional appeals does not vary or effect any other variables. The study also found that the framing of the involvement of celebrities using first-person had led to more positive attitudes, and have little effect on the behaviour of people. Thus, the stude had concluded that the relationship of parasocial nature was a strong positive predictor of behaviours.

Figure 1: The impact of negative emotional appeal on the Australian households

(Source: journals.plos.org)

According to the author Leviston et al. 2020, the action of other people and what the other people were approve of can be an effective tool for the promotion of behaviour that is more pro-environment. But, a potential barrier to these utilities are the strict social norms of a society. These include cognitive biases like how different people perceive themselves and others. This could lead to a tendency of people to think that they are better than their peers. For investigation of the role of better than average effects in the people regarding pro-nature behaviour, the study was conducted (Leviston et al. 2020). They had done a large online survey that took into account of a large number of people, about 5219 from across Australia. They were asked questions about 21 different questions linked to pro-environment behaviour. After that, they had estimated how the engagement was comapred with that of and average Australian. These questions were also linked to the positive and negative behavioural patterns of Australian people regarding the demand for action against climate change. The results found that over half of the participants had overestimation about their engagements in pro-environmental behaviours, and it was related to the reduced perceptions of personal harm as a result of climate change. The study also found that the impact of negative appeals triggers more people to demand action against climate change.

According to the author Tam et al. 2020, there is a strong consensus among scientists that the challenge of climate change is an acute crisis that needs to be dealt with. Social psychology is an important tool for the understanding of how humans interpret and responds to climate change. In this study, they had done a systematic review of the different articles published in the subject of “role of social psychology in tackling climate change” (Tam et al. 2020). They had concluded that there is a huge future scope regarding demanding of actions against climate change by different governments, that should be studied. They also concluded that the negative emotional appeal is a more effective tool as a response against the climate change.

6.0 Current Study

The literature review section reviewed the impact of negative appeals in changing the psychological behaviour of Australian people and a growing demand for action against climate change by the governments. But, the studies that were taken for the review and source of information does not throw any prospects regarding the impact of negative appeals in comparison with a control set of survey data. One of the studies also looks into the role of celebrities regarding the growth of awareness among people.

The aim of the study is also successfully fulfilled with the literature review (Xie et al. 2019). As, the aim was to compare the effective emotional appeal messages inducing pride appeal versus guilt appeal in increasing climate actions in Australia.

The literature review section also, provides a justification of the study, as this literature concluded that negative emotional appeals are more effective than that of positive emotional appeals.

7.0 Implications

The implications in the area of research and studies are profound. The literature concluded that the impact of negative emotional appeals have a greater impact on triggering actions against the climate change. This had been proven.

This also includes the less attractiveness of positive appeals like pride, and happiness in changing the social behaviour for the demanding of action against climate change.

The implications of the study in the real world is profound (Goldberg et al. 2020). The implications include the growing impact of negative appeals in demanding action against the climate change. The implications also includes the less attractiveness of positive appeals like pride, happiness in changing the social beahviour for the demanding of action against the climate change (Westoby & McNamara, 2019). Thus, climate activists should not be encouraged to promote actions by positive emotional appeals by the people in taking action against the climate change. [Refer to appendix 2]

8.0 Conclusion

From the study, it can be concluded that the impact of negative emotions far supersedes the impact of positive emotions. This has a societal impact as well. More and more researchers, climate activists and scientists are encouraged for taking actions by promoting the negative emotional appeals.

References

• Book
• (Willis 2020) Too Hot to Handle? The Democratic Challenge of Climate Change. Available at: https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=dGXXDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=emotional+appeals+to+increase+climate+action+in+australia+bbok&ots=HD3wJriJY4&sig=f9JJGn8IlJRT_EL8tdwa_bO7wpc&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false [Accessed on: 25.04.2023]
• Journals
• Goldberg, M. H., Gustafson, A., & Van Der Linden, S. (2020). Leveraging social science to generate lasting engagement with climate change solutions. One Earth, 3(3), 314-324. Retrieved from: https://www.cell.com/one-earth/pdf/S2590-3322(20)30420-6.pdf [Retrieved on: 25.04.2023]
• Leviston, Z., & Uren, H. V. (2020). Overestimating one's “green” behavior: Better?than?average bias may function to reduce perceived personal threat from climate change. Journal of Social Issues, 76(1), 70-85. Retrieved from: https://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=8615&context=ecuworkspost2013 [Retrieved on: 25.04.2023]
• Park, S. (2020). How celebrities’ green messages on twitter influence public attitudes and behavioral intentions to mitigate climate change. Sustainability, 12(19), 7948. Retrieved from: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/19/7948/pdf [Retrieved on: 25.04.2023]
• Tam, K. P., Leung, A. K. Y., & Clayton, S. (2021). Research on climate change in social psychology publications: A systematic review. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 24(2), 117-143. Retrieved from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/ajsp.12477 [Retrieved on: 25.04.2023]
• Xie, B., Brewer, M. B., Hayes, B. K., McDonald, R. I., & Newell, B. R. (2019). Predicting climate change risk perception and willingness to act. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 65, 101331. Retrieved from: http://www.columbia.edu/~rim2114/publications/Xie_Brewer_Hayes_McDonald_Newell-2019.pdf [Retrieved on: 25.04.2023]
• Yousef, M., Dietrich, T., & Rundle-Thiele, S. (2021). Social advertising effectiveness in driving action: a study of positive, negative and coactive appeals on social media. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(11), 5954. Retrieved from: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/11/5954/pdf [Retrieved on: 25.04.2023]
• Article
• (Westoby & McNamara, 2019) Fear, grief, hope and action. Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0511-z. [Accessed on: 25.04.2023]
• Website
• (Frontiersin.org) Climate Change and Emotions: Analysis of People’s Emotional States in Australia. Available at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.644240/full [Accessed on: 25.04.2023]