Abstract

HIDALGO VILLODRES, María del Carmen; CASADO CASTRO, Fernando  and  GARCIA-LEIVA, Patricia. Communicating climate change: improving the effectiveness of public campaigns. Escritos de Psicología [online]. 2014, vol.7, n.2, pp.28-35. ISSN 1989-3809.  https://dx.doi.org/10.5231/psy.writ.2014.2603.

Research on climate change highlights the need to develop more effective campaigns to increase citizens' awareness of this issue, increase their willingness to accept the measures necessary to halt this phenomenon and change their behaviour. This paper describes a study which analyzed the effectiveness of an advertising message that combined informative and motivational variables on pro-environmental attitudes and intended behaviour. The study sample consisted of 180 university students, divided into two equivalent groups. The results supported the initial hypothesis,the participants in the group that received specific behaviour guidelines (to increase perceived control) together with information on economic savings (motivational variable) displayed more changes in self-efficacy, pro-environmental attitudes and intention of behaviour than the group that did not receive this information.

Keywords : environmental communication; climate change; pro-environmental attitude; behavioral intention.

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