Abstract
Scenarios can be used to communicate potential future changes and engage and connect different audiences in exploring sustainable solutions. Communicating scenarios using creative visualisation, co-creation and a focus on local contexts are especially promising. This research is conducted on the island of Palawan in the Philippines as part of the GCRF Blue Communities project. With a quasi-experimental design, we investigate the psychological and emotional effects of the engagement with future scenarios as a tool for communicating sustainability. Together with local stakeholders and community members, three distinct, locally relevant scenario narratives (Business as Usual, Best Case, and Worst Case) have been co-created. Subsequently, a sample of N = 109 local high school students was asked to creatively engage with these scenario narratives. Intentions to engage in sustainable behaviour, perceived behavioural control, ascription of responsibility, consideration of future consequences, six basic emotions and connectedness to place were assessed before and after the activity via paper-pencil administrated questionnaires. A mixed-model analysis showed significant increases in intentions to engage in sustainable behaviour, however, this increase disappeared when consideration of future consequences was added as a covariate, suggesting a mediating effect. The level of consideration of future consequences also increased significantly after engaging with any of the future scenarios, which questions the common interpretation of consideration of future consequences as a trait variable. Perceived behavioural control significantly increased following the engagement with each of the scenarios whereas ascription of responsibility and connectedness to place did not show any changes. Overall, the two most emotion-evoking scenarios, Best Case Scenario and Worst Case Scenario, turn out as superior over the Business as Usual Scenario, which points to the relevance of emotional framing for effective messaging in our sample. This is the first systematic, quantitative assessment of the effects of future scenarios as a communication tool.
Highlights
The importance of achieving the 2030 Agenda of Sustainable Development is globally recognised and 17 goals (SEGs) have been formulated, representing 17 areas of importance
Intentions to engage in sustainable behaviour (Int_sust), consideration of future consequences (CFC), perceived behavioural control (PBC), ascription of responsibility (ASC), connectedness to place and emotions have been included
Visual inspection of the estimated marginal means revealed that the biggest changes could be recorded for the Best Case Scenario group, the increase was not significantly larger than the increase for the Worst Case Scenario group
Summary
The importance of achieving the 2030 Agenda of Sustainable Development is globally recognised and 17 goals (SEGs) have been formulated, representing 17 areas of importance. Facing social and economic struggles, many communities around the world are balancing the conflict between their everyday needs and the needs of future generations, possibly compromising environmental sustainability. This is because making sustainable choices might result in immediate economic disadvantages, which can have severe consequences in the Global South. Research on human perceptions and behaviour systematically over-represents university samples from industrialised Western countries, leading to an information deficit around decisions, behaviour and communication strategies of people who live in developing regions and are directly affected by the conflict between everyday subsistence and sustainable development
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