Fear appeals and college students attitudes and behavioral intentions toward global warming

Shu-Chu Li*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

19 Scopus citations

Abstract

This study used Witte's extended parallel process model to examine the relationships between the use of fear appeals and college students attitudes and behavioral intentions toward global warming. A pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design was adopted. Three hundred forty-one college students from six communication courses at two universities were recruited for this experiment. The results show that when in a high-threat condition, both high- and low-efficacy messages resulted in positive attitudes and behavioral changes, while in a low-threat condition, low-efficacy messages led to negative changes in attitudes and behavioral intentions. This study suggests that when attempting to promote low carbon-emitting behaviors among college students, messages should contain both threat and efficacy information, but messages that contain low-threat and low-efficacy information should be avoided. © 2014

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)243-257
Number of pages15
JournalJournal of Environmental Education
Volume45
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 2 Oct 2014

Keywords

  • danger control processes
  • extended parallel process model
  • fear appeals
  • fear controlprocesses
  • global warming

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Fear appeals and college students attitudes and behavioral intentions toward global warming'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this