Impact of messaging treatments on stages of change in relational organizing for climate-friendly plant-based diets

To achieve rapid, widespread voluntary behavior change for climate change mitigation and other pro-social causes, an increasing number of studies have demonstrated the value of relational organizing. Relational organizing involves enlisting motivated individuals to encourage others they know to engage in a desired behavior. We developed messaging interventions that targeted the social-psychological variables associated with participation in relational organizing to promote a climate action, specifically encouraging others to eat a plant-forward diet. We conducted an online experiment with a between-subjects design, testing one intervention (message treatments) that had six levels (five treatments and one control). Of the five treatments, four increased participants’ contemplation of (intentions to engage in) relational organizing: 1) confidence engaging in plant-based eating, 2) supportive social norms for plant-based eating and relational organizing, 3) personal relational organizing aptitude, and 4) perceived relational organizing hypocrisy and self-efficacy. However, these treatments did not increase our outcome measure at the next stage of change (preparation), which is indicative of the numerous contextual variables that can inhibit relational organizing. We discuss the implications of our results for interventions aimed at scaling pro-climate actions such as plant-based eating.