Fear Appeal Theory in Climate Change Communication

Fear Appeal Theory in Climate Change Communication: History

Please note this is an old version of this entry, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Subjects: Environmental Studies

Contributor:

Scott T. Armbruster

Rajesh V. Manchanda

This study investigated how goal frames (gain, non-loss, loss) either with or without efficacy statements affect consumers’ support for climate-change policy. Addressing the goal-framing literature’s difficulty in establishing a guiding theory with consistent findings, we (1) propose fear appeal theory as an alternative framework to guide goal-framing research; (2) test five fear appeal variables (fear, perceived threat, hope, perceived efficacy, and message processing) as mediators of goal-framing effects on policy support; and (3) highlight four common goal-framing confounds that may partly underlie the literature’s inconsistent findings. Aligning with fear appeal theory, results from a carefully controlled experiment revealed that a more threatening loss frame paired with an efficacy statement produced the strongest pro-policy attitudes and the greatest willingness-to-pay by successfully balancing fear/threat with hope/efficacy and by producing deeper message processing.

fear appeal theory
climate change communication
consumer behaviour

1. Introduction

Climate change is affecting weather patterns and creating climate extremes in every region across the globe. Evidence of such changes include heatwaves, heavy precipitation, mudslides, droughts, and cyclones. These and other weather events are being clearly attributed to human factors.

—Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report 2021 [1]

It is important to gain consumers’ support for pro-environmental policy to help address these catastrophic climate related effects. Despite this growing urgency, marketers remain uncertain about the types of messages that best motivate consumers’ pro-environmental policy support and behavior. Marketers frequently face a choice of emphasizing either the positive consequences of acting against climate change or the negative consequences of not acting. Positive consequences may be expressed through gain frames depicting action causing desired outcomes (e.g., with mitigation, climate conditions will be safe) or non-loss frames depicting action preventing undesired outcomes (e.g., with mitigation, climate conditions will not be dangerous). However, marketers can recast positive frames (gains or non-losses) to express negative consequences through loss frames depicting inaction causing undesired outcomes (e.g., without mitigation, climate conditions will be dangerous). Levin, Schneider, and Gaeth [2] referred to such linguistic manipulation as goal framing. Levin, Schneider, and Gaeth [2] distinguish two types of positive frames, but do not title them. We adopt the titles gain frame and non-loss frame from Cesario, Corker, and Jelinek [3]. The authors of [2] also distinguish two types of negative frames, which the authors of [3] title loss frame and non-gain frame. Non-gain frames depict inaction failing to produce desirable outcomes (e.g., “If we do not mitigate climate change, conditions will not be safe”). Because non-gain frames generally involve double negation, they are impractical to use for an entire message and were excluded from this study. If most climate change outcomes can just as easily be framed as gains, non-losses, or losses, which is preferable and why? Although a seemingly straightforward question, the answer remains unclear.

To date, most answers are derived from prospect theory [4]. It was first argued that loss frames are more persuasive because of loss aversion: people prefer to avoid losses than to obtain gains of equal size. However, researchers did not find a consistent loss-frame advantage. To reconcile the inconsistent findings, Rothman and Salovey [5] derived a hypothesis—termed the risk-framing hypothesis by Van ‘t Riet et al. [6]—that became ubiquitous in the field. Based on prospect theory’s reflection effect, which describes how framing reverses risk preferences in decision-making, the risk-framing hypothesis posits that loss frames best promote risk-taking behavior, whereas gain frames best promote risk-preventing behavior. For example, the risk-framing hypothesis predicts that disease-detection behaviors are best promoted with loss frames, as such behaviors involve risk-taking (e.g., undergoing a mammogram involves taking the risk of being diagnosed with cancer), whereas disease-prevention behaviors are best promoted with gain frames, as such behaviors involve only preventing future risks (e.g., applying sunscreen to prevent skin cancer risks). Despite its enduring popularity, meta-analyses of hundreds of framing effects [7,8] offer little evidence for the risk-framing hypothesis. Loss frames are not more persuasive than gain frames for disease-detection behavior (except for a very small loss-frame advantage of r = −0.056 for breast cancer detection; [8]) and gain frames are not more persuasive than loss frames for disease-prevention behaviors (except for a small gain-frame advantage of r = 0.154 for dental hygiene behaviors; [7]). Research in the sustainability domain has also yielded mixed findings: there is evidence for both a gain-frame advantage and a loss-frame advantage [9,10].

2. Fear Appeal Theory: A New Framework for Goal Framing

Loss frames present a series of negative, often threatening, outcomes. Unsurprisingly then, climate-change loss frames produce more fear than gain frames [14,15]. Does this threat and fear matter? Threat and fear are generally overlooked or ascribed an ancillary role in goal framing. In fear appeal theory, however, threat and fear are ascribed a central role as the core drivers of persuasion [13]. Because loss frames evoke these core fear appeal variables, we suggest loss frames are a form of fear appeal. Although loss frames are strictly defined by their linguistic structure (i.e., conditional propositions with the structure “if not-then [undesired outcome]”) while fear appeals are more defined by their effects (i.e., the fear and perceived threat they elicit), the definitions of loss frames and fear appeals may largely be emphasizing different aspects of the same persuasive message, which may be understood with the same theory. If correct, fear appeal theory may offer an established and well-evidenced framework to guide goal-framing research and explain goal-framing effects in the sustainability domain.

The dominant model of fear appeals is the extended parallel process model (EPPM; [13]). The EPPM details how fear appeals may succeed or fail depending on which of two “parallel processes” dominate in a consumer’s response to a fear appeal: the adaptive danger-control process in which the consumer accepts the danger of the threat described in the fear appeal and attempts to mitigate that threat (e.g., accept the danger of climate change impacts and support pro-climate policy) or the maladaptive fear-control process in which the consumer rejects the message and attempts to reduce their fear without mitigating the threat (e.g., deny the danger of climate change impacts and oppose pro-climate policy). Successful fear appeals therefore maximize danger-control processing. To do so, the EPPM posits that fear appeals must convince consumers of two components of a threat: (a) threat severity (i.e., the threat has serious consequences) and (b) threat susceptibility (i.e., the threat will likely occur without protective action). If consumers perceive sufficiently high threat severity and susceptibility, fear is evoked. However, consumers may cope with this fear maladaptively through fear control processes unless they also perceive high efficacy (i.e., perceive they are capable of action that can avert the threat). The EPPM therefore states fear appeals must use efficacy statements to bolster perceived efficacy and minimize fear-control processes.

The most recent and comprehensive meta-analysis of fear appeals [16] supports the EPPM’s key tenet that successful messages increase perceived efficacy alongside fear and perceived threat. Tannenbaum et al.’s [16] findings diverge slightly from the EPPM, however, in that efficacy statements approximately double the positive effects of fear appeals but are not required for positive effects. Regardless, if loss frames may be understood as fear appeals, both the EPPM’s theorizing and Tannenbaum et al.’s [16] meta-analysis suggest loss frames are most effective with efficacy statements. Without efficacy statements, researchers may underestimate the effectiveness of loss frames and conclude they are worse or no better than other frames. Similarly, in the sustainable consumption domain, researchers have theorized that fear appeals accompanied by efficacy statements would maximize persuasion’s effectiveness [17].

Communicating threats without accompanying efficacy statements is likely a poor strategy within climate-change communication. The global complexity of the climate crisis has been labelled a “super wicked problem” [18]—a problem that challenges positive efficacy perceptions by lacking any definitive solution and, despite growing urgency, faces slow progress because of political polarization, limited cooperation among stakeholders (consumers, governments, and industry), and the public’s tendency to prefer policy addressing short-term, not long-term threats. Moreover, many consumers are unfamiliar with climate-change solutions or doubt their effectiveness [19], while the media frequently covers threats and negative efficacy information rather than pro-climate solutions [20]. Consequently, it is unsurprising that only 5% of Americans are confident humanity will successfully manage climate change [21].

Beyond bolstering perceived efficacy, efficacy statements also protect against two other potential loss-frame pitfalls. First, efficacy information evokes feelings of hope [22]—an important predictor of pro-climate attitudes beyond perceived efficacy (e.g., [23]) that may be usefully added to the EPPM [24]. As Nabi [25] argues, fear appeals may be better conceptualized as “fear-hope” appeals. This is because efficacy information explains what actions will counter the threat described in the fear appeal—a situation that closely aligns with what is theorized to elicit hope: “the wishing or yearning for relief from a negative situation” [26] (p. 282). In the climate-change context where hopelessness is well documented [19] and encapsulated in coinages such as “ecoanxiety” [27] and “apocalypse fatigue” [28], it appears crucial to include hope-inspiring efficacy information. Second, efficacy statements may deepen message processing. The EPPM predicts that when consumers perceive high efficacy, they process fear appeals deeply rather than defensively denying, ignoring, or minimizing them [13]. Moreover, with deeper message processing, consumers better notice the strength of a fear appeal’s argument and therefore experience the fear appeal as more persuasive [29]. Consistent with this reasoning, several studies observed that deeper processing of threatening climate change messages enhances pro-climate attitudes [15].

This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/su14127411

© Text is available under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.