Pulling on Heartstrings: Three Studies of the Effectiveness of Emotionally Framed Communication to Encourage Workplace Pro-Environmental Behavior

We investigated whether the emotional framing of climate change communication can influence workplace pro-environmental behavior. In three quasi-experimental studies, we examined whether emotional displays in climate change communication affected participants’ subsequent workplace pro-environmental behavior. In Studies 1 and 2, undergraduate and master’s students viewed a fictional news video about climate change, where the newsreader displayed one of five emotions: sadness, fear, anger, contentment, and hope. The dependent variable was recycling behavior following the viewing. In Study 3, office employees viewed the same news videos online; the dependent variable was requesting further information to increase pro-environmental behavior in the workplace. The results from all three studies show that displayed emotion significantly affected pro-environmental behavior and that sadness, in particular, resulted in significantly less workplace pro-environmental behavior. These results indicate the need to study the effect of discrete emotions, rather than assuming that emotions of the same valence have similar effects. The results also underscore the importance of using experimental designs in advancing the field. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings for research, theory, and practice of emotionally framed communication of sustainability messages.