Making the right decision: subjective evaluation of pro-environmental public service announcements on the water conservation

Abstract

Promoting sustainable practices remains an important task not only on the organizational, but on the societal level as well. Too many pro-environmental initiatives lack a solid evidence basis to support their effectiveness and this may lead to wasted resources. The present study uses water conservation as an example as it is one of the most accessible pro-environmental behaviors a person can perform and most people have the opportunity to use water responsibly on a daily basis. The aim of the present study was to investigate the perceptions of differently worded and illustrated public service announcements (PSA). A total of 480 adults participated in the first experiment which showed that people rate most highly those PSAs that highlight the extent of the problem if the appeals are not accompanied by an image; if the appeals were accompanied by an image, participants rated appeals directly requesting the change of behavior most favorably. A total of 120 adults participated in the second experiment. Participants were either given three leaflets with various appeals without any illustrations, or three leaflets with the same appeals but with an accompanying image as well. When leaflets had no images, people preferred the appeal that highlights the problem, however when an image was next to the appeals, people preferred the request based appeal. In neither experiment did participants prefer normative appeals, even though they are the most effective. This research was funded by a grant (No. S-MIP-17-134) from the Research Council of Lithuania.