Framing Waste Classification among Chinese Young People: The Moderating Effect of Consideration of Future Consequences

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the influence of two outcome framings – gain-loss framing and individual-societal framing – and an individual difference – consideration of future consequences (i.e. CFC) – on intentions to participate in waste classification and the likelihood of engaging in activities that promote waste classification. The results of an experiment (N = 215) conducted among college students in China demonstrated that individual framing was more effective than societal framing in promoting intentions to participate in waste classification, while there was no relative advantage of gain or loss framing. Furthermore, the effect of individual-societal framing was moderated by CFC. Implications of the findings were also discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Gain-loss framing
• individual-societal framing
• consideration of future consequences
• waste classification
• China

Acknowledgement

The authors thank Dr. Liuna Geng for her help with and comments on the data analysis.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [grant number 010914370122].