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The impacts of climate change continue to magnify, having devastating effects on populations across the world. Despite the mounting evidence that climate change will continue to intensify and it is due to human activities, humanity is slow to act. To encourage wider action among the public, this chapter discusses the use of food to tell the story of climate change, a growing yet underexplored area of research. The chapter first discusses the current state of food and climate change as an engagement tool. Next, the chapter describes how both food storytelling can overcome some of the challenges within the field of climate change communication. Lastly, the chapter provides examples of how food storytelling techniques can enhance engagement with climate change solutions and shift eating patterns.
Some theoretical models assume that a primary source of contention surrounding science belief is political and that partisan disagreement drives beliefs; other models focus on basic science knowledge and cognitive sophistication, arguing that they facilitate proscientific beliefs. To test these competing models, we identified a range of controversial issues subject to potential ideological disagreement and examined the roles of political ideology, science knowledge, and cognitive sophistication on science beliefs. Our results indicate that there was surprisingly little partisan disagreement on a wide range of contentious scientific issues. We also found weak evidence for identity-protective cognition (where cognitive sophistication exacerbates partisan disagreement); instead, cognitive sophistication (i.e., reasoning ability) was generally associated with proscience beliefs. In two studies focusing on anthropogenic climate change, we found that increased political motivations did not increase polarization among individuals who are higher in cognitive sophistication, which indicates that increased political motivations might not have as straightforward an impact on science beliefs as has been assumed in the literature. Finally, our findings indicate that basic science knowledge is the most consistent predictor of people’s beliefs about science across a wide range of issues. These results suggest that educators and policymakers should focus on increasing basic science literacy and critical thinking rather than on the ideologies that purportedly divide people.
In addition to vegetarians and vegans, plant-based diets are adopted by flexitarians or semi-vegetarians, i [...]
This study examines how the level of concreteness and abstraction of climate change imagery influences people’s responses via emotional valence, and how such effect is moderated by people’s visual literacy. Findings show that concrete images promote negative feelings, which subsequently reduce people’s perceived distance to climate change, and encourage concern and behavioral intention. Less visually literate people are more influenced by the visuals’ effect and are more motivated by concrete images. Our study integrates theoretical perspectives from construal level, emotional valence, and visual literacy, while also offering practical advice regarding how to effectively visualize climate change to engage a wide audience.
The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other institutions communicate about climate change to diverse audiences without a background in climate science, including the general public. The effectiveness of these communications depends in part on how well the presented terminology is understood. In qualitative interviews, we examined how US residents interpreted key terms drawn from IPCC reports, including tipping point, unprecedented transition, carbon neutral, carbon dioxide removal, adaptation, mitigation, sustainable development, and abrupt change. We recruited twenty participants with diverse views on climate change from a nationally representative sample. We identified common themes and misunderstandings. Overall, 88% of the themes arose by the tenth interview, and no new themes arose after the seventeenth interview. Mitigation, carbon neutral, and unprecedented transition were perceived as the most difficult to understand. Adaptation and abrupt change were perceived as the easiest to understand. However, even if a term appeared to be understood, participants were not always clear about how it applied to climate change. Participants tended to draw on their mental models of non-climate contexts where terms had different meanings. Reading the terms in the context of sentences taken from communication materials was not always helpful due to the use of complex language. Based on participants’ interpretations and the science communication literature, we provide suggestions for communicating about each term. Generally, recommendations are to simplify wording, make links to climate change explicit, and describe underlying processes. Our findings are relevant to climate change communications by the IPCC and other institutions.
In this paper, we use choice architecture techniques to activate both social and personal norms, seeking to increase pro-environmental choices and to better understand the effect of such norm types on post-choice emotional responses. In four experiments, we make different social or personal norms salient by aligning choice environments with psychosocial mechanisms that activate different types of norms. We use different choice architecture techniques to change information, alter product sets, and generate the social consequences of choices. The target behavior, purchasing a recycled paper notebook, is captured through direct purchase behaviors or willingness to pay commitments. We find that choice architecture activates personal but not social norms, and that associated positive and negative emotions (guilt, shame, regret and pride) are elicited by choices but not by willingness to pay. Moreover, manipulating choice environment moderates the relationship between choice and norm-related emotions, such that positive emotional responses seem to be stronger than negative ones. The results suggest that choice architecture interventions can activate individual level beliefs about sustainability and help reduce the attitude-behavior gap.
Sharing platforms are becoming increasingly common, transforming how organisations and customers interact across diverse categories. While there is clear demand for the sharing economy, less is known about heterogeneity of consumer preferences and the varying demand that exists for sharing experiences across different categories of consumption. In order to help brands better understand who shares, this research takes a step forward in the profiling of users of the sharing economy. Drawing on social psychology, this research investigates how social norms can be employed as a form of social influence and nudge consumers to engage in higher levels of shared consumption. We find three clear segments of sharing consumers, representing 86% of all consumers: the mobility-focused sharer, the diverse-platform sharer, and the power-platform sharer. The last segment (accounting for 14%) comprises consumers who do not engage with sharing platforms. Moreover, social norms influenced the future behaviours of only one segment of consumers: the diverse-platform sharer. We discuss how sharing platform providers can better understand, target, and convert consumers to engage in sharing.
As scientists warn that climate change threatens to disrupt global agricultural systems, there is a need to better understand how the public thinks about the impacts of climate change on food. Building on prior research demonstrating interactive effects of knowledge (e.g., issue understanding and educational attainment) and political party identification in public concern about climate change, we analyze data from 816 respondents drawn from a national probability survey of U.S. adults (fielded September 4–December 10, 2018) to examine whether these factors would similarly predict concern about climate change impacts on food choice, specifically. Indeed, we find that knowledge variables more strongly predict concern among Democrats than Republicans. These general patterns persist in models featuring political ideology (liberalism-conservatism) instead of party identification, and when we control for belief in climate change and other demographic variables (age, gender). Results shed light on the dynamics underlying public concern about projected consequences of anthropogenic climate change that carry widespread implications for food security, public health, and nutrition around the globe.
This study examined the role of place attachment in determining visitors’ willingness to engage in climate friendly behavior in parks and support for management actions to minimize climate-change impacts. The sample consisted of visitors to Missouri State Parks (n = 1775). Place attachment was measured using 12 items of place identity, place dependence, and social bonding. Exploratory factor analysis of climate friendly behavior items revealed two dimensions: Visit based (i.e., short-term, immediate actions individuals could take during their visit) and Big Picture (i.e., advocacy actions that suggest a long-term engagement with parks). A path analysis demonstrated that the dimensions of place attachment predict climate friendly behavior and support for climate friendly management action in different ways. Specifically, place identity increased climate friendly behavior (big picture) and place dependence increased both climate friendly behavior (visit based) and support for climate friendly management action. Findings from this study provided evidence for the importance of place attachment as a means for engaging visitors in climate-related actions both in and beyond the park setting.
Although climate change is arguably the most urgent issue of our time, the general public knows little about climate science. Here, we investigate how often five basic climate facts are conveyed in The New York Times news articles covering climate change from 1980 to 2018. With only one exception, the frequencies with which these facts appear in news articles today are vanishingly small. This suggests that print journalism is a largely untapped resource for educating the public on basic climate facts.
The cyberlearning community in the United States brings computer scientists and learning scientists together to design and study innovative learning technologies. The Cyberlearning Community Report: The State of Cyberlearning and the Future of Learning With Technology highlights examples of the exciting work our community is engaged in as we integrate the latest innovations in learning science and computer science into new research designs and methods. This work is also driving the need for new learning sciences in areas such as embodied cognition, identity, and affect, and requires advances in methods, such as multimodal analytics, and in computer science, such as in context-sensitive computing. The report, organized by The Center for Innovative Research in Cyberlearning (CIRCL) and co-authored by 22 members of the U.S. cyberlearning community, describes six design themes emerging across multiple NSF-funded cyberlearning projects:
Climate change is an increasingly politicized issue in the United States, with many members of the American public, especially those who identify as politically conservative, skeptical about this dangerous phenomenon. A host of social and psychological processes have been investigated in an attempt to understand skepticism and resistance to responding to the threat of climate change, including motivated reasoning, system justification theory, social dominance orientation, belief in a just world, the cultural cognition thesis, and solution aversion. In this article, we review recent research into these processes and their implications for understanding the political divide in responding to climate change. We also highlight efforts to test communications interventions aimed at ameliorating these processes underlying climate change skepticism, including framing and scientific consensus. This literature review may be informative for climate change focused communicators, policymakers, practitioners, and academics who directly or indirectly interact with the public, or who design communication campaigns, policy, initiatives, or programs
for the public.
This article describes evidence suggesting that science curiosity counteracts politically biased information processing. This finding is in tension with two bodies of research. The first casts doubt on the existence of “curiosity” as a measurable disposition. The other suggests that individual differences in cognition related to science comprehension—of which science curiosity, if it exists, would presumably be one—do not mitigate politically biased information processing but instead aggravate it. The article describes the scale-development strategy employed to overcome the problems associated with measuring science curiosity. It also reports data, observational and experimental, showing that science curiosity promotes open-minded engagement with information that is contrary to individuals’ political predispositions. We conclude by identifying a series of concrete research questions posed by these results.
This article traces the history of the US FDA regulation of nutrition labeling, identifying an ‘informational turn’ in the evolving politics of food, diet and health in America. Before nutrition labeling was introduced, regulators actively sought to segregate food markets from drug markets by largely prohibiting health information on food labels, believing such information would ‘confuse’ the ordinary food consumer. Nutrition labeling’s emergence, first in the 1970s as consumer empowerment and then later in the 1990s as a solution to information overload, reflected the belief that it was better to manage markets indirectly through consumer information than directly through command-and-control regulatory architecture. By studying product labels as ‘information infrastructure’, rather than a ‘knowledge fix’, the article shows how labels are situated at the center of a legally constructed terrain of inter-textual references, both educational and promotional, that reflects a mix of market pragmatism and evolving legal thought about mass versus niche markets. A change to the label reaches out across a wide informational environment representing food and has direct material consequences for how food is produced, distributed, and consumed. One legacy of this informational turn has been an increasing focus by policymakers, industry, and arguably consumers on the politics of information in place of the politics of the food itself.
Implementing behavioral health interventions is a complicated process. It has been suggested that implementation strategies should be selected and tailored to address the contextual needs of a given change effort; however, there is limited guidance as to how to do this. This article proposes four methods (concept mapping, group model building, conjoint analysis, and intervention mapping) that could be used to match implementation strategies to identified barriers and facilitators for a particular evidence-based practice or process change being implemented in a given setting. Each method is reviewed, examples of their use are provided, and their strengths and weaknesses are discussed. The discussion includes suggestions for future research pertaining to implementation strategies and highlights these methods’ relevance to behavioral health services and research.
Consumer behaviour is key to the impact that societ y has on the environment. The actions that people take and choices they make – to consume certain products and services or to live in certain ways rather than others – all have direct and indirect impacts on the environment, as well as on personal (and collective) well-being. This is why the topic of ‘sustainable consumption’ has become a central focus for national and international policy. Why do we consume in the ways that we do? What fact ors shape and constrain our choices and actions? Why (and when) do people behave in pro-environmental or pro-social ways? And how can we encourage, motivate and facilitate more sustainable attitudes, behaviours and lifestyles? Motivating Sustainable Consumption sets out to address these questions. It reviews the literature on consumer behaviour and behavioura l change. It discusses the evidence base for different models of change. It al so highlights the dilemmas and opportunities that policy-makers face in addressing unsustainable consumption patterns and encouraging more sustainable lifestyle s. Changing behaviours – and in particular motivating more sustainable behaviours – is far from straightforward. Individual behaviours are deeply embedded in social and institutional contexts. We are guided as much by what others around us say and do, and by the ‘rules of the game’ as we are by persona l choice. We often find ourselves ‘locked in’ to unsustainable behaviours in spite of our own best intentions. In these circumstances, the rhetoric of ‘consumer s overeignty’ and ‘hands-off’ governance is inaccurate and unhelpful. Policy-make rs are not innocent bystanders in the negotiation of consumer choice. Policy interven es continually in consumer behaviour both directly (through regulation and taxes eg) and more importantly through its extensive influence over the social con text within which people act. This insight offers a far more creative vista for policy innovation than has hitherto been recognised. A concerted strategy is needed to make it easy to behave more sustainably: ensuring that incentive structures and institutional rules favour sustainable behaviour, enabling access to pro-environmental choice, engaging people in initiatives to help themselves, and exemplifying the desired changes within Government’s own policies and practices.
Motivations to consume a given food or drink differ across consumers. For instance, coffee drinking can be motivated by sensory enjoyment (hedonic motivation) or by stimulation (functional motivation). Today it remains unknown how hedonic vs. utilitarian motivations impact consumerproduct interaction. The objective of the present research was to study the impact of both motivations on consumer responses (i.e. pleasantness, emotions, and importance and satisfaction for each of the five senses) during the entire experience of a coffee beverage. Sixty participants drinking coffee beverage either for sensory enjoyment (SENS, n=30) or to be stimulated (STIM, n=30) were recruited. Four moments of the product experience were considered: water heating, jar handling, cup preparation and cup drinking. Self-ratings were repeatedly performed by the participants after each moment. SENS participants depicted higher positive emotions than STIM participants and even if similar levels of pleasantness were reached after cup drinking by both groups, levels of pleasantness at water heating and jar handling moments differed. The importance and satisfaction for the different senses also changed according to the participant motivation to drink the coffee beverage. Marketing implications are discussed in terms of communication materials development to more strongly engage consumers with the product.
The extended self was proposed in 1988. Since it was formulated, many technological changes have dramatically affected the way we consume, present ourselves, and communicate. This conceptual update seeks to revitalize the concept, incorporate the impacts of digitization, and provide an understanding of consumer sense of self in today’s technological environment. It is necessarily a work in progress, for the digital environment and our behavior within it continue to evolve. But some important changes are already clear. Five changes with digital consumption are considered that impact the nature of self and the nature of possessions. Needed modifications and additions to the extended self are outlined, and directions for future research are suggested. The digital world opens a host of new means for self-extension, using many new consumption objects to reach a vastly broader audience. Even though this calls for certain reformulations, the basic concept of the extended self remains vital.
To help mitigate the negative effects of climate change, citizens’ attitudes and behaviors must be better understood. However, little is known about which factors predict engagement with climate change, and which messaging strategies are most effective. A community sample of 324 residents from three regions in British Columbia read information either about a climate change impact relevant to their local area, a more global one, or, in a control condition, no message. Participants indicated the extent of their climate change engagement, the strength of their attachment to their local area, and demographic information. Three significant unique predictors of climate change engagement emerged: place attachment, receiving the local message, and gender (female). These results provide empirical support for some previously proposed barriers to climate action and suggest guidelines for effective climate change communication.
The importance of understanding and promoting pro-environmental behaviour among individual consumers in modern Western Societies is generally accepted. Attitudes and attitude change are often examined to help reach this goal. But although attitudes are relatively good predictors of behaviour and are relatively easy to change they only help explain specific behaviours. More stable individual factors such as values and identities may affect a wider range of behaviours. In particular factors which are important to the self are likely to influence behaviour across contexts and situations. This paper examines the role of values and identities in explaining individual pro-environmental behaviours. Secondary analyses were conducted on data from three studies on UK residents, with a total of 2694 participants. Values and identities were good predictors of pro-environmental behaviour in each study and identities explain pro-environmental behaviours over and above specific attitudes. The link between values and behaviours was fully mediated by identities in two studies and partially mediated in one study supporting the idea that identities may be broader concepts which incorporate values. The findings lend support for the concept of identity campaigning to promote sustainable behaviour. Moreover, it suggests fruitful future research directions which should explore the development and maintenance of identities.
One of the first rules of effective communication is to ``know thy audience.'' People have different psychological, cultural and political reasons for acting - or not acting - to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and climate change educators can increase their impact by taking these differences into account. In this presentation we will describe six unique audience segments within the American public that each responds to the issue in its own distinct way, and we will discuss methods of engaging each. The six audiences were identified using a nationally representative survey of American adults conducted in the fall of 2008 (N=2,164). In two waves of online data collection, the public's climate change beliefs, attitudes, risk perceptions, values, policy preferences, conservation, and energy-efficiency behaviors were assessed. The data were subjected to latent class analysis, yielding six groups distinguishable on all the above dimensions. The Alarmed (18%) are fully convinced of the reality and seriousness of climate change and are already taking individual, consumer, and political action to address it. The Concerned (33%) - the largest of the Six Americas - are also convinced that global warming is happening and a serious problem, but have not yet engaged with the issue personally. Three other Americas - the Cautious (19%), the Disengaged (12%) and the Doubtful (11%) - represent different stages of understanding and acceptance of the problem, and none are actively involved. The final America - the Dismissive (7%) - are very sure it is not happening and are actively involved as opponents of a national effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Mitigating climate change will require a diversity of messages, messengers and methods that take into account these differences within the American public. The findings from this research can serve as guideposts for educators on the optimal choices for reaching and influencing target groups with varied informational needs, values and beliefs.
There appears to be general agreement among social psychologists that most human behavior is goal-directed (e. g., Heider, 1958 ; Lewin, 1951). Being neither capricious nor frivolous, human social behavior can best be described as following along lines of more or less well-formulated plans. Before attending a concert, for example, a person may extend an invitation to a date, purchase tickets, change into proper attire, call a cab, collect the date, and proceed to the concert hall. Most, if not all, of these activities will have been designed in advance; their execution occurs as the plan unfolds. To be sure, a certain sequence of actions can become so habitual or routine that it is performed almost automatically, as in the case of driving from home to work or playing the piano. Highly developed skills of this kind typically no longer require conscious formulation of a behavioral plan. Nevertheless, at least in general outline, we are normally well aware of the actions required to attain a certain goal. Consider such a relatively routine behavior as typing a letter. When setting this activity as a goal, we anticipate the need to locate a typewriter, insert a sheet of paper, adjust the margins, formulate words and sentences, strike the appropriate keys, and so forth. Some parts of the plan are more routine, and require less conscious thought than others, but without an explicit or implicit plan to guide the required sequence of acts, no letter would get typed.
Dialectical or paradoxical thought and the layering of ideas and methods are used to describe the development of a communication theory of identity. A dialectical perspective highlights the polarities or contradictions in all social life. Layering implies that there are alternative ways of knowing that are continually juxtaposed and played off each other and/or blended together. The proposed theory consists of 4 frames of identity: personal, enacted, relational, and communal. These frames may be considered 2, 3, or 4 at a time, thereby understanding their layering, juxtaposition, interpenetration, and dialectic tension. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Temporal construal theory states that distant future situations are construed on a higher level (i.e., using more abstract and central features) than near future situations. Accordingly, the theory suggests that the value associated with the high-level construal is enhanced over delay and that the value associated with the low-level construal is discounted over delay. In goal-directed activities, desirability of the activity's end state represents a high-level construal, whereas the feasibility of attaining this end state represents a low-level construal. Study 1 found that distant future activities were construed on a higher level than near future activities. Studies 2 and 3 showed that decisions regarding distant future activities, compared with decisions regarding near future activities, were more influenced by the desirability of the end state and less influenced by the feasibility of attaining the end state. Study 4 presented students with a real-life choice of academic assignments varying in difficulty (feasibility) and interest (desirability). In choosing a distant future assignment, students placed relatively more weight on the assignment's interest, whereas in choosing a near future assignment, they placed relatively more weight on difficulty. Study 5 found that distant future plans, compared with near future plans, were related to desirability of activities rather than to time constraints.
Food Involvement reflects the bond between consumer and food, and serves as a means of expression, identity and social recognition. Yet no existing scales are able to assess the complex psychological nature of Food Involvement. To fill this gap, this study developed and validated a Psychological Food Involvement Scale (PFIS). Data were collected by an online self-report questionnaire, involving 476 Italians aged 20-72 years (M = 48.13, SD = 13.18). The structure and psychometric properties of PFIS were examined through an exploratory and a confirmatory factor analysis, and construct validity was assessed by correlating it with Food Involvement Scale, Food Variety Seeking Scale and the General Health Interest Scale. As a behavioural indicator of validity, food and drink consumption was assessed using the Dietary Habits and Nutrition Beliefs Questionnaire. Factor analysis indicated that the PFIS comprised 19 items grouped in four stable dimensions: Emotional Balance; Self-Realization; Social Affirmation; Social Bonding. People more psychologically involved in food were more interested in healthy eating and more likely to vary their diet. The PFIS discriminated between dietary patterns. Higher PFIS scores were associated with frequent consumption of meat/fish and wholegrains/legumes. Frequent intake of meat/fish and snacks was associated with Social Bonding and meat/fish with Emotional Balance. The PFIS also explained consumption of vegetable drinks and lactose-free milk indicating the symbolic value ascribed to them related to self-expression, acceptance by others, and emotions. This implies potential for the PFIS for use in research to understand food choice and promote healthy eating.
Food consumption can incorporate meanings of place whereby the culture
of place becomes a feature of the experience. Despite the apparent
importance of place to how tourists experience food, there is little
understanding of how food experience producers integrate place into
that experience. This research focuses on artisanal food and the artisanal
food consumption experience to study how the relationship between
food and the meaning of place is incorporated into an augmented food
experience based on the input of food experience producers (including
food artisans, restaurateurs, speciality food retailers, tour guides). To
understand how these key stakeholders add value to the experience
through place discourse, the study focuses on Tasmania in Australia as a
context and uses multiple qualitative methods including in-depth
interviews and extensive observation over a two-year period. The
research reveals that food experience producers integrate layers of place
meaning (artisanal food and place stories; the artisan; terroir; community
values of place) into the food experience, and that related discourse is
substantial and unique to the environment and complimentary to both
the food and place. The study contributes to the understanding of how
food experience producers contribute to food consumption experience.
This book unpacks the increasingly complex relationships between food and climate change. Whether you're a chef, baker, distiller, restaurateur, or someone who simply enjoys a good pizza or drink, it's time to come to terms with how climate change is affecting our diverse and interwoven food system. The book offers an eye-opening journey through a complete menu of before-dinner drinks and salads; main courses and sides; and coffee and dessert. Along the way, the book examines the escalating changes occurring to the flavors of spices and teas, the yields of wheat, the vitamins in rice, and the price of vanilla. The story is rounded out with a primer on the global food system, the causes and impacts of climate change, and what we can all do. The book is a celebration of food and a call to action—encouraging readers to join with others from the common ground of food to help tackle the greatest challenge of our time.
Incentives, both rewards and punishments, are effective instruments that have been embedded in electricity product designs to reduce electricity consumption. Reducing electricity consumption can considerably contribute to climate change mitigation. To better understand consumer preferences for incentive‐based electricity products, a choice experiment using choice‐based conjoint analysis was conducted among a representative sample of Swiss electricity consumers. Based on stated preferences for different product attributes, four consumer segments were identified. While two segments (49.6%) stated preference for incentive‐based products, two other segments were less accepting of incentive components (particularly of penalties). We further explain the segments' preferences using psychographic characteristics, combining measures from psychology and behavioral economics. Precisely, environmental values and emotions, energy saving intentions and motives, perceived product attractiveness, as well as loss and risk aversion, and comparative optimism bias best described the segments. We align our findings with previous segmentation studies and argue for a stronger integration of behavioral economics in the environmental discourse. We further discuss the usefulness of consumer segmentation to develop tailored strategies that effectively target consumers' preferences and needs.
Science curious people—those who enjoy consuming science-related information—are less likely to hold politically polarized views about contentious science. Consequently, science curiosity is of great interest to scholars across the social sciences. However, measuring science curiosity via the science curiosity scale (SCS) is time intensive; potentially impeding its widespread usage. We present two new methods for reducing SCS administration time. One method presents respondents with a randomly selected subset of items (“Random Subset [RS] Method”). The other asks all respondents a core set of just four items (“Reduced-Form Method;” RF). In three nationally representative surveys, we assess the construct, convergent, and predictive validity of these alternatives. We find both versions to be well validated.
Informal science communication efforts play a large role in individuals’ science learning. The present study sought to examine a nontraditional science communication environment: popular culture conventions. Utilizing the communication theory of identity, identity was examined to determine how participants expressed their identities when interacting with science in the convention environment. Qualitative interviews were held with audience members ( n = 14) and science communicators ( n = 13). Interviews were thematically analyzed using the constant comparative method. Results suggest that audience members could experience changes in their identity, shifting their views so they thought of themselves as users, learners, and consumers of science.
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the potential of the coffee drinking experience as an engagement tool for climate change. Review the current state of the coffee drinking experience, define it and examine links to climate change communication practices. The argument for the coffee drinking experience as a method for engaging the public on climate change is presented.
Design/methodology
The case study method was used to analyze a small number of existing research on the coffee drinking experience. This method is used to define the coffee drinking experience and identify examples in which it could be leveraged for engaging consumers in climate change.
Findings
The emotive and multi-sensory aspects of the coffee drinking experience, combined with the informal atmosphere of the coffee houses provide a non-threatening environment for discussing complex ideas. This study finds there is scope for further exploration and research on the coffee drinking experience as a tool for public engagement with climate change.
Research limitations/implications
This paper is limited in that it is only an initial exploratory study and has not reached the empirical stage yet. It is further limited to the analysis of secondary data.
Originality
Social science in general and experiential marketing specifically has yet to examine the ability of food or drinking experiences as an engagement tool for climate change.
The Gateway Belief Model describes a process of attitudinal change where a shift in people's perception of the scientific consensus on an issue leads to subsequent changes in their attitudes which in turn predict changes in support for public action. In the current study, we present the first large-scale confirmatory replication of the GBM. Specifically, we conducted a consensus message experiment on a national quota sample of the US population (N=6,301). Results support the mediational hypotheses of the GBM: an experimentally induced change in perceived scientific consensus causes subsequent changes in cognitive (belief) and affective (worry) judgments about climate change, which in turn are associated with changes in support for public action. The scientific consensus message also had a direct effect on support for public action. We further found an interaction
with both political ideology and prior attitudes such that conservatives and climate change disbelievers were more likely to update their beliefs toward the consensus. We discuss the model's theoretical and practical implications, including why conveying scientific consensus can help reduce politically motivated reasoning
It is proposed that the marketing concept, as a normative framework, is not applicable to two broad classes of producers because of the personal values and social norms that characterize the production process. These two classes of producers are artists and ideologists. Artists are those who create primarily to express their subjective conceptions of beauty, emotion or some other aesthetic ideal. Ideologists are those who put forward an integrated set of positive and normative statements that describe what the world is and what it should be.
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the perceived hedonic and utilitarian value of organic dining along with its antecedents and dining outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from two groups of US consumers who had recently visited a quick-service or upscale restaurant to consume organic menu items. Data were analyzed using factor analysis and hierarchical regression analyses using Hayes’ PROCESS procedure.
Findings
Perceived hedonic value has two dimensions (dining-centered excitement and social attention and escapism), as does utilitarian value (tangible value and intangible value). Involvement with organic food is a significant antecedent of perceived value. Satisfaction exhibits various mediating effects on behavioral intention, depending on the value factor considered.
Research limitations/implications
This study contributes to knowledge regarding the perceived dining value of consuming organic food at restaurants. Findings shed light on the importance of understanding perceived value in predicting diners’ behavioral intentions across two restaurant segments. Consumers’ value perceptions of organic dining differ from those related to general organic food shopping.
Practical implications
The findings provide clear ways for restaurants to increase the perceived utilitarian and hedonic value of organic food dishes. This study assists restaurant practitioners in managing customer satisfaction and loyalty by prioritizing the effort invested in developing different value perceptions.
Originality/value
This research is one of the first attempts to delve into consumers’ dining experiences with organic food across two major restaurant segments.
This study explores how menu stimuli can influence diners’ decision-making of local food (i.e., dishes prepared with locally sourced ingredients) at restaurants. A 2 (diner type: traveler vs. resident) by 3 (menu cues/stimulus: visual vs. verbal vs. control) by 2 (involvement with local food: low vs. high) scenario-based experiment is administered to 830 U.S. consumers. The results reveal that providing local producer’s information does not necessarily increase diners’ attitudes and purchase intentions when excluding the effects of diner type and involvement. Travelers’ responses are more favorable when exposed to a visual and control stimuli (vs. verbal); while residents respond more favorably when the producer’s information is available (vs. control). A significant three-way interaction effect is identified. In the low-involvement group, travelers’ reactions towards three menu stimuli significantly differ from those of residents. However, both travelers and residents respond equally towards three menu stimuli in the high-involvement group.
Social media has emerged as a promising source of data for public health. This paper examines how these platforms can provide empirical quantitative evidence for understanding dietary choices and nutritional challenges in “food deserts” -- Census tracts characterized by poor access to healthy and affordable food. We present a study of 3 million food related posts shared on Instagram, and observe that content from food deserts indicate consumption of food high in fat, cholesterol and sugar; a rate higher by 5-17% compared to non-food desert areas. Further, a topic model analysis reveals the ingestion language of food deserts to bear distinct attributes. Finally, we investigate to what extent Instagram ingestion language is able to infer whether a tract is a food desert. We find that a predictive model that uses ingestion topics, socio-economic and food deprivation status attributes yields high accuracy (>80%) and improves over baseline methods by 6-14%. We discuss the role of social media in helping address inequalities in food access and health.
How is consumer desire transformed by contemporary technology? Most extant theory holds
that technology rationalizes and reduces passion. In our investigation of networks of desire—
complex open systems of machines, consumers, energy and objects—we find technology
increasing the passion to consume. Effects depend upon participation in the network, which
can be private, public, or professional. Private participation tends to discipline passion into
interests reflecting established cultural categories. Public and professional participation build
new connections between extant desires and a wider network, decentering ties and
deterritorializing flows that limit hungers to emplaced bodies. Public and professional
participation drive consumption passion to transgressive extremes. We use ethnography and
netnography to study online food image sharing, a broad field that includes everything from
friend networks to food bloggers. Using and extending Deleuze and Guattari’s desire theory,
we conceptualize desire as energetic, connective, systemic, and innovative. Critically
examining the role of technocapitalism in the realm of consumption passion, we question
the emancipatory possibilities of unfettered desire. Networks of desire create a passionate
new universe of technologically enhanced desire, one that challenges the way we think
about consumer collectives, capitalism, emancipation, and posthuman consumption.
Appreciable advances have been made in recent years in raising climate change awareness and enhancing support for climate and energy policies. There also has been considerable progress in understanding of how to effectively communicate climate change. This progress raises questions about the future directions of communication research and practice. What more is there to say? Through a selective literature review, focused on contributions since a similar stock‐taking exercise in 2010, ¹ the article delineates significant advances, emerging trends and topics, and tries to chart critical needs and opportunities going forward. It describes the climate communication landscape midway through the second decade of the 21st century to contextualize the challenges faced by climate change communication as a scientific field. Despite the important progress made on key scientific challenges laid out in 2010, persistent challenges remain (superficial public understanding of climate change, transitioning from awareness and concern to action, communicating in deeply politicized and polarized environments, and dealing with the growing sense of overwhelm and hopelessness). In addition, new challenges and topics have emerged that communication researchers and practitioners now face. The study reflects on the crucial need to improve the interaction between climate communication research and practice, and calls for dedicated science‐practice boundary work focused on climate change communication. A set of new charges to climate communicators and researchers are offered in hopes to move climate change communication to a new place—at once more humble yet also more ambitious than ever before, befitting to the crucial role it could play in the cultural work humanity faces with climate change. WIREs Clim Change 2016, 7:345–369. doi: 10.1002/wcc.403
This article is categorized under: Perceptions, Behavior, and Communication of Climate Change > Communication
Although more than 95% of active climate scientists attribute recent global warming to human causes ( 1 , 2 ) and most of the general public accepts that climate change is occurring, only about half of U.S. adults believe that human activity is the predominant cause ( 3 ), which is the lowest among 20 nations polled in 2014 ( 4 ). We examine how this societal debate affects science classrooms and find that, whereas most U.S. science teachers include climate science in their courses, their insufficient grasp of the science may hinder effective teaching. Mirroring some actors in the societal debate over climate change, many teachers repeat scientifically unsupported claims in class. Greater attention to teachers' knowledge, but also values, is critical.
The central message of this essay is to make climate change more visible and meaningful to community members through landscape architectural techniques and building literacy. It identifies general principles for opening people's eyes to climate change, demonstrating the potentially powerful role that landscape can play in helping citizens to see and foresee climate change in their own backyards, where they care the most.
In this context, the author emphasizes the value of local landscape & place-based experience, as well as the importance of designing visible solutions. The essay describes two linked frameworks that address respectively the possibility of seeing and recognizing climate change, and the need to consider not only climate change impacts but also its causes, mitigation and adaptation solutions. Landscape architects and landscape planners can play an integrative, educational & visionary role in creative design and engagement of communities on climate change. The essay offers four pathways for landscape professionals to integrate & enhance public engagement and literacy on climate change, through: applying landscape messaging to make climate change more visible on the ground; using compelling visual tools that reveal signs of climate change in local landscapes and depict resilient, low-carbon futures; local climate change visioning processes to help communities understand the implications for communities; and helping neighbours to self-educate and mobilize for local climate change action. Better training and a professionally endorsed code of ethics for visual media are needed to support this vital work.
Organizational Identity presents the classic works on organizational identity alongside more current thinking on the issues. Ranging from theoretical contributions to empirical studies, the readings in this volume address the key issues of organizational identity, and show how these issues have developed through contributions from such diverse fields of study as sociology, psychology, management studies and cultural studies. The readings examine questions such as how organizations understand who they are, why organizations develop a sense of identity and belonging where the boundaries of identity lie and the implications of postmodern and critical theories' challenges to the concept of identity as deeply-rooted and authentic. Includes work by: Stuart Albert, Mats Alvesson, Blake E. Ashforth, Marilynn B. Brewer, George Cheney, Lars Thoger Christensen, C.H. Cooley, Kevin G. Corley, Barbara Czarniawska, Janet M. Dukerich, Jane E. Dutton, Kimberly D. Elsbach, Wendi Gardner, Linda E. Ginzela, Dennis A. Gioia, E. Goffman, Karen Golden-Biddle, Mary Jo Hatch, Roderick M. Kramer, Fred Rael, G.H. Mead, Michael G. Pratt, Anat Rafaeli, Hayagreeva Rao, Majken Schultz, Howard S. Schwartz, Robert I. Sutton, Henri Taijfel, John Turner, David A. Wherren, and Hugh Willmott. Intended to provide easy access to this material for students of organizational identity, it will also be of interest more broadly to students of business, sociology and psychology.
This article examines the science-of-science-communication measurement problem. In its simplest form, the problem reflects the use of externally invalid measures of the dynamics that generate cultural conflict over risk and other policy-relevant facts. But at a more fundamental level, the science-of-science-communication measurement problem inheres in the phenomena being measured themselves. The “beliefs” individuals form about a societal risk such as climate change are not of a piece; rather they reflect the distinct clusters of inferences that individuals draw as they engage information for two distinct ends: to gain access to the collective knowledge furnished by science and to enjoy the sense of identity enabled by membership in a community defined by particular cultural commitments. The article shows how appropriately designed “science comprehension” tests—one general and one specific to climate change—can be used to measure individuals’ reasoning proficiency as collective-knowledge acquirers independently of their reasoning proficiency as cultural-identity protectors. Doing so reveals that there is in fact little disagreement among culturally diverse citizens on what science knows about climate change. The source of the climate-change controversy and like disputes over societal risks is the contamination of the science-communication environment with forms of cultural status competition that make it impossible for diverse citizens to express their reason as both collective-knowledge acquirers and cultural-identity protectors at the same time.
The study examines the impact of variations in locally produced food signage on consumer attributes within a casual buffet-style restaurant. A baseline period followed by three treatments were conducted to test signage effects on the constructs of product involvement, servicescape perception, pleasure, perceived product quality and revisit intention. Moderation effects from product involvement were also investigated on the proposed structural paths. Results suggested that the largest effects occurred on the constructs when local identification, farm name, and pictures of the farm were included. Product involvement showed no moderation effects on the proposed relationships. Implications for academics and practitioners were provided as were future research directions.
In this article, I contrast traditional marketing with a new approach to marketing called Experiential Marketing and provide a strategic framework for Experiential Marketing. Traditional marketing views consumers as rational decision-makers who care about functional features and benefits. In contrast, experiential marketers view consumers as rational and emotional human beings who are concerned with achieving pleasurable experiences. Five different types of experiences, or strategic experiential modules (SEMs), that marketers can create for customers are distinguished: sensory experiences (SENSE); affective experiences (FEEL); creative cognitive experiences (THINK); physical experiences, behaviours and lifestyles (ACT); and social-identity experiences that result from relating to a reference group or culture (RELATE). These experiences are implemented through so-called experience providers (ExPros) such as communications, visual and verbal identity, product presence, electronic media, etc. The ultimate goal of experiential marketing is to create holistic experiences that integrate individual experiences into a holistic Gestalt. The paper concludes with an examination of strategic issues and a discussion about how to create the experience-oriented organization.
It is widely recognized that communications that activate social norms can be effective in producing societally beneficial conduct. Not so well recognized are the circumstances under which normative information can backfire to produce the opposite of what a communicator intends. There is an understandable, but misguided, tendency to try to mobilize action against a problem by depicting it as regrettably frequent. Information campaigns emphasize that alcohol and drug use is intolerably high, that adolescent suicide rates are alarming, and—most relevant to this article—that rampant polluters are spoiling the environment. Although these claims may be both true and well intentioned, the campaigns' creators have missed something critically important: Within the statement “Many people are doing this undesirable thing” lurks the powerful and undercutting normative message “Many people are doing this.” Only by aligning descriptive norms (what people typically do) with injunctive norms (what people typically approve or disapprove) can one optimize the power of normative appeals. Communicators who fail to recognize the distinction between these two types of norms imperil their persuasive efforts.