Environmental threat appeals in green advertising

Abstract

This study addresses the behavioural effects of cognitive threat appraisal, emotional fear response and perceived coping efficacy in threat appeal based green advertising. While most existing theories attribute fear arousal a secondary role as a moderator of cognitive effects, or consider fear detrimental to persuasion, the proposed framework integrates fear response as a principal behavioural antecedent. An experimental online survey of a representative sample of the Australian population reasserted the role of fear arousal, indicating that both cognitive threat level beliefs and fear arousal from exposure to climate change related environmental threat appeals significantly increase pro-environmental intentions. Cognitive threat level beliefs and emotional fear response were highly correlated. Perceived coping efficacy did improve persuasion effects for one of the two studied behaviours, but providing efficacy information also significantly lowered fear responses.