Journal
COMMUNICATION RESEARCH
Volume 42, Issue 6, Pages 839-863Publisher
SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC
DOI: 10.1177/0093650214534973
Keywords
virtual environments; framing; interactivity; environmental behavior; response efficacy
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In virtual environments (VEs), users experience visceral simulations that feel like the real world. Virtual experiences are proposed as a novel operationalization of gain and loss framed environmental messages. A 2 (gain vs. loss frame) x 2 (high vs. low interactivity) x 3 (pretest, posttest, delayed posttest) experiment was conducted. Immediately following exposure, virtual experiences promoted environmental behavior by reducing paper consumption by 25% compared to a control group. In addition, the gain framed experience of growing a virtual tree promoted behavioral intentions more effectively than the loss framed experience of cutting down a tree. Response efficacy mediated the relationship between framing and environmental behavioral intentions. One week after exposure, response efficacy heightened as a result of the gain frame. Participants in the high interactivity conditions also reported higher levels of environmental behavior than those in the low interactivity conditions one week following exposure.
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