Effects of Responsibility Appeals for Pro-Environmental Ads: When Do They Empower or Generate Reactance?

This study compares information campaign messages that appeal to personal responsibility versus those that do not, in attempts to promote efforts to reduce the threat of global warming. In two scenarios, self-efficacy moderates the effects of responsibility appeals on behavioral intentions through perceived consumer effectiveness and self-accountability, but with different patterns, such that the appeals might empower people or else trigger their reactance. In the first scenario (Studies 1 and 3), people are induced to believe that the messages are credible, and responsibility appeals empower participants; behaviors associated with high self-efficacy, but not low self-efficacy, increase the effects of responsibility appeals relative to non-responsibility appeals. In a second scenario, without cues signaling strong credibility, such as when identifiable sources are not present (Study 2) or are not highly credible (Study 3), responsibility appeals trigger reactance; behaviors associated with low/high self-efficacy decrease/increase the effects of responsibility appeals.