Go Green! Should Environmental Messages be So Assertive?

Abstract

Environmental communications often contain assertive commands, even though research in consumer behavior, psycholinguistics, and communications has repeatedly shown that gentler phrasing is more effective when seeking consumer compliance. This article shows that the persuasiveness of assertive language depends on the perceived importance of the issue at hand: Recipients respond better to pushy requests in domains that they view as important, but they need more suggestive appeals when they lack initial conviction. The authors examine this effect in three laboratory studies and one field experiment using Google AdWords. Their findings refer to various environmental contexts (i.e., economizing water, recycling plastic containers, reducing air and sea pollution). The key implication of these findings is that issue importance needs to be carefully assessed (or affected) before the language of effective environmental campaigns can be selected.