Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

acceptedVersion

Publication Date

2-2018

Abstract

Building on research in motivated reasoning and framing in science communication, we examine how messages that vary attribution of responsibility (human vs animal) and temporal orientation (now vs in the next 10 years) for wildlife disease risk influence individuals’ conservation intentions. We conducted a randomized experiment with a nationally representative sample of US adults (N = 355), which revealed that for people low in biospheric concern, messages that highlighted both human responsibility for and the imminent nature of the risk failed to enhance conservation intentions compared with messages highlighting animal responsibility. However, when messages highlighting human responsibility placed the risk in a temporally distal frame, conservation intentions increased among people low in biospheric concern. We assess the underlying mechanism of this effect and discuss the value of temporal framing in overcoming motivated skepticism to improve science communication.

Keywords

attribution of responsibility, biospheric concern, framing, One Health, pro-environmental behavior, science communication, temporal distance

Discipline

Health Communication | Public Health | Public Relations and Advertising

Research Areas

Corporate Communication

Publication

Public Understanding of Science

Volume

27

Issue

2

First Page

185

Last Page

196

ISSN

0963-6625

Identifier

10.1177/0963662516670805

Publisher

SAGE Publications (UK and US)

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662516670805

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