CO₂ Valence Framing: Is It Really Any Different from Just Giving the Amounts?

In comparison to positive valence framing, negative valence framing has been shown to augment the perceived differences between CO₂ emission amounts. This means that, in order to increase the chance that an individual will perceive a difference between two CO₂ amounts, it is better to highlight the amount by which that the other choice, or choices, are larger. However, such experiments did not test whether such framing results in differences as compared to just presenting the amounts. Choice experiments and travel behavior change programs typically use simply the attribute values (e.g. 300g/km versus 250g/km), thus it is important to know whether valence framing would result in differences as compared to this valence-free or “neutral” framing. Further, as CO₂ emissions information is relatively new, and an individual will not always be presented with a second value (i.e. no context), how might that affect responses? Thus, in this research the authors describe the results of an experiment with four treatments and four key measures. The four treatments being: “no context”, “neutral”, “positive-framing”, and “negative-framing”. The four key measures are: sustainability ranking; perception of differences between amounts; motivation to reduce personal emissions; motivation to support one’s city in reducing emissions.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADB10 Standing Committee on Traveler Behavior and Values.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Waygood, Owen
  • Avineri, Erel
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2016-1-10 to 2016-1-14
• Date: 2016

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 16p
• Monograph Title: TRB 95th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Attitudes; Carbon dioxide; Pollutants; Sustainable development; Travel behavior
• Subject Areas: Environment; Planning and Forecasting; Transportation (General); I15: Environment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01589962
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 16-3414
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 8 2016 10:36AM