Motivating Children to Become Green Kids: The Role of Victim Framing, Moral Emotions, and Responsibility on Children’s Pro-Environmental Behavioral Intent

ABSTRACT

Today’s children comprise the generation that will need to deal with the severe consequences of climate change in the future. Hence, as stimulating children to grow up as environmentally conscious kids is crucial, this study examines how victim framing can affect children’s intentions to adopt pro-environmental behaviors. Specifically, it examines how a focus on negative consequences of climate change for animals versus landscapes stimulates children’s pro-environmental behavioral intent and whether attributed responsibility for climate change moderates these effects. A 2 (focus on loss of animals versus landscapes) x 2 (internal versus external attribution of responsibility) between-subjects factorial design was used to test the hypotheses. The results revealed that a message focusing on the loss of animals (vs. landscapes) led to higher empathy, which resulted in stronger anticipatory guilt, which in turn stimulated pro-environmental behavioral intent. Further, the results show that a victim frame focusing on the loss of animals (vs. landscapes) led to higher levels of climate-message avoidance and lower behavioral intent when the responsibility for climate change was attributed to an external (vs. internal) cause. This study offers valuable insights into the underlying motivations of children to behave in an environmentally friendly way.

KEYWORDS:

• Moral emotions
• children’s pro-environmental behavioral intent
• attribution of responsibility
• victim framing
• climate message avoidance

Acknowledgements

The authors declare no conflict of interest. This work was supported by the Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek-Vlaanderen (FWO) [grant numbers OPR.2018.01.25.01, 3E0.2015.00.35.01, ] and Bijzonder Onderzoeksfonds Ghent University (BOF) [BOF.2018.0031.01].

Disclosure statement

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