The Power of Emotional Appeal in Motivating Behaviors to Mitigate Climate Change among Generation Z

ABSTRACT

This study examines how emotionally evocative viral videos on climate change may promote Generation Z’s actions addressing climate change. Through an online survey of 583 participants, this study provides empirical evidence supporting the conceptual framework incorporating problem recognition, involvement recognition, and motivation mediators to understand the mechanism underlying the effects of emotions on advocacy behaviors from passive information seeking, to proactive willingness to speak out, and willingness to alter behavior to mitigate climate change. Results of the study provide guidelines for environmental nonprofit organizations and advocacy groups on how to educate Generation Z on the climate change issue and engage this young generation to mitigate climate change.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change
• YouTube video
• emotional appeal
• situational theory of problem solving

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. These 26 videos had been used by well-known nonprofit organizations and governmental agencies (e.g., National Geographic, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, etc.) to educate the public on the climate change issue. By using those existing videos, we were able to enhance the realism and ecological validity of our survey such that the survey results can yield strong implications for policy makers and nonprofit organizations on how to use emotion-inducing videos to mobilize Gen Z to combat climate change.

2. Participants were randomly assigned to view one of the nine videos rather than all the videos to avoid fatigue as well as potential cross-contamination of responses (i.e., responses to one video would have a spillover effect on responses to another video).