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Your thinking matters: Promoting climate-responsible attitudes and behaviour using the choice blindness manipulation

Lehmann, Berenike LU (2019) PSYP01 20191
Department of Psychology
Abstract
This pre- and post-measure interventional study attempted to create a positive attitude shift in environmental attitudes of 80 students using the choice blindness (CB) manipulation. It is a novel approach that first manipulates the participants’ answers and secondly asks the subjects to justify the answer they did not choose, to elicit attitude change. The second condition utilised a persuasive text pointing out the most climate-damaging individual actions in addition to the manipulation. A control group, including participants experiencing no manipulation, served as a baseline. To investigate whether the manipulation-induced attitude change persisted over time, a four-week follow up was administered. Preference for consistency (PFC),... (More)
This pre- and post-measure interventional study attempted to create a positive attitude shift in environmental attitudes of 80 students using the choice blindness (CB) manipulation. It is a novel approach that first manipulates the participants’ answers and secondly asks the subjects to justify the answer they did not choose, to elicit attitude change. The second condition utilised a persuasive text pointing out the most climate-damaging individual actions in addition to the manipulation. A control group, including participants experiencing no manipulation, served as a baseline. To investigate whether the manipulation-induced attitude change persisted over time, a four-week follow up was administered. Preference for consistency (PFC), study field, and gender were included as moderators in the linear mixed-effects model. Results demonstrated that the CB manipulation in both experimental conditions significantly yielded a positive attitude change. Unexpectedly, the persuasive text did not increase attitude change. Neither PFC nor gender had significant effects on the relation between the manipulation and attitude change, whereas the study field did. Economics and law students were significantly more affected by the manipulation compared to social sciences students. The study supports that attitudes within different domains can be shifted using the CB manipulation. Furthermore, it suggests a repeatable and interactive approach to change environmental attitudes in the long run successfully. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Lehmann, Berenike LU
supervisor
organization
course
PSYP01 20191
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
choice blindness, attitude change, climate change, theory of cognitive dissonance, theory of planned behaviour, linear mixed-effects model
language
English
id
8995093
date added to LUP
2019-09-16 17:06:00
date last changed
2019-09-16 17:06:00
@misc{8995093,
  abstract     = {{This pre- and post-measure interventional study attempted to create a positive attitude shift in environmental attitudes of 80 students using the choice blindness (CB) manipulation. It is a novel approach that first manipulates the participants’ answers and secondly asks the subjects to justify the answer they did not choose, to elicit attitude change. The second condition utilised a persuasive text pointing out the most climate-damaging individual actions in addition to the manipulation. A control group, including participants experiencing no manipulation, served as a baseline. To investigate whether the manipulation-induced attitude change persisted over time, a four-week follow up was administered. Preference for consistency (PFC), study field, and gender were included as moderators in the linear mixed-effects model. Results demonstrated that the CB manipulation in both experimental conditions significantly yielded a positive attitude change. Unexpectedly, the persuasive text did not increase attitude change. Neither PFC nor gender had significant effects on the relation between the manipulation and attitude change, whereas the study field did. Economics and law students were significantly more affected by the manipulation compared to social sciences students. The study supports that attitudes within different domains can be shifted using the CB manipulation. Furthermore, it suggests a repeatable and interactive approach to change environmental attitudes in the long run successfully.}},
  author       = {{Lehmann, Berenike}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Your thinking matters: Promoting climate-responsible attitudes and behaviour using the choice blindness manipulation}},
  year         = {{2019}},
}