Even if it will upset me, I would want to know

: climate change and health messages framing effects on information avoidance and intention to reduce meat consumption

Abstract

Despite rising scientific evidence that the climate crisis demands attention and action, presenting climate change information has had ironic effects, sometimes inducing attitude changes and sometimes inducing people to reject such information. Due to the ironic negative effects, it was hypothesised that framing a messaging on red meat consumption risks as a climate change issue, would increase information avoidance and decrease intention to reduce meat consumption (Lu, McComas & Besley, 2017). Moreover, interpersonal resources were predicted to function as a positive moderator, attenuating the message framing effect on both information avoidance and the intention to reduce red meat consumption (Sheppard & Howell, 2014). 209 participants from a Portuguese and a non-Portuguese sample, filled out a web-based survey with an experimental design, being randomly assigned to either a Control, Climate Change or Health frame condition. Survey measures included their attitudes towards and risk perception of climate change and red meat consumption, climate change events exposure and perceived social support, climate change information and health information avoidance and intentions to reduce meat consumption. Results showed no message frame effects nor moderator effect of social support. Further exploratory analysis revealed that attitudes towards eating meat served as negative predictor of intention to reduce red meat consumption; while risk perception of climate change was found to be a negative predictor of climate change information avoidance, particularly in the Portuguese sample. The findings’ present preliminary implications for climate change communication, namely the need to increase risk awareness as a potential way to decrease information avoidance.

Date of Award	11 Feb 2021
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Rui Gaspar (Supervisor)