Read passage then answer

• How could fear be used to motivate environmental behavior in college students?
• What are some of the problems with using fear to change behavior?

One emotion to treat with some caution is fear. Although doomsday scenarios of environmental devastation might seem to encourage pro-environmental behavior, research on fear appeals shows that they can backfire. Fear-inducing strategies have been used widely for behaviors such as drinking and driving, delinquency, and health behaviors, and studies have typically found such strategies to be ineffective. The reason is that the messages often focus only on the severity of the negative consequence of the behavior. People also need to believe that there is a high probability of the fearsome consequences actually occurring before they act preventatively Thus, credible information on the probability of the negative consequence needs to be verified and communicated. In addition, when people are too fearful, particularly when theythink there is little theycan do about the threat, theyare likely to respond with denial. Fear-inducing messages attract attention but may inhibit rather than motivate action. Warnings are ineffective except in specific conditions, with repeat warnings doing especially poorly found that hopeful messages, emphasizing the positive effects of climate change action on society, were more effective than fearful messages in encouraging pro-environmental behavior among those inclined to deny climate change A moderate amount of fear can be a useful motivating factor if people are simultaneously shown something they can do to reduce the threat. Hine and Gifford (1991) found that a moderate amount of fear about pollution, induced via the presentation of vivid slides, increased the donation of money to an environmental organization compared to a group that did not see the slides. Meijinders found a similar effect in a Dutch sample: participants who saw a moderately fear-inducing video about the effects of CO2 were more influenced by an argument about the importance of buying energy-efficient lightbulbs than were participants who merely saw an informational video. A perception of environmental risk, accompanied by information about actions that can be taken to avert the risk, can be an effective motivation for action. Based on surveys of a representative sample of 1225 US adults, O'Connor et al.

found that risk perceptions had an independent effect on environmental behaviors, separate

from their relationship to general environmental beliefs and knowledge.