Increasing intention to reduce fossil fuel use: a protection motivation theory-based experimental study

Abstract

Reducing individual fossil fuel use is an important component of climate change mitigation, but motivating behaviour change to achieve this is difficult. Protection motivation theory (PMT) is a psychological framework that outlines the conditions under which people are more likely to be persuaded to take a specific response or action. This experimental study investigated the impact six different protection motivation theory-based messages had on intention to reduce fossil fuel use in a sample 3803 US adults recruited via Amazon Mechanical (MTurk). Only messages targeting self-efficacy and response efficacy increased intention to reduce fossil fuel use relative to the control message. However, only the self-efficacy message had an impact on its target construct (i.e. self-efficacy). As such, the mechanism for action for the response efficacy message is unclear. Furthermore, while the current study demonstrates that many of the PMT-related messages did not achieve changes in intention, this it is still possible that messages targeting these constructs could still lead to changes in intention in other modalities and when other message content is used. Given the urgency of responding to climate change, the potential for additive benefits of combining effective PMT-based messages should be considered irrespective of their mechanism as should research focused on how to effectively target other key PMT constructs.