Making the right decision: subjective evaluation of pro-environmental public service announcements

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to investigate the perceptions of differently worded and illustrated public service announcements (PSAs). The results of the first experiment revealed that participants were inclined to show the most preference for those PSAs that highlighted the extent of the problem if the appeals were not accompanied by an image; if the appeals were accompanied by an image, participants preferred the appeals that directly requested the change of behavior. Results of the second experiment revealed that when leaflets had no images, people preferred the appeal that highlighted the problem, however when an image was next to the appeal, people preferred the requestbased appeal.

Keywords

• water conservation
• social norms
• PSA
• subjective evaluation
• pro-environmental behavior