Testing Appeals to Aspirational Identities (Animal Think Tank)

This report contains a "Summary of findings" section, which is reproduced below as requested.

Summary of findings

Aim

This report details two experiments aimed at understanding whether message framing can influence the likelihood of signing a petition to end factory farming. The experiments focused on appealing to individuals' positive self-identity, exploring how identity-based appeals can shape attitudes and behaviours towards social issues.

Method

The experiments exposed participants to either written messages (Experiment one) or videos (Experiment two) designed to evoke empathy and align with values of compassion and justice. They were subsequently asked about their likelihood of signing a petition to ban factory farming and their attitudes towards animals. Participants were also asked about how they feel about the way animals are treated, and how it effects their diet (before seeing the message), and their future dietary intentions (after seeing the message).

Results

Experiment one found a repulsive effect, in which some messages resulted in lower intentions to sign a petition than in the control condition. This effect occurred for three messages which appealed to people's 'vegan-hearted' nature, and one which appealed to their nature as an animal lover. In contrast, this effect was abolished in Experiment two.

Further analysis indicated a positive correlation between strong self-identification as an animal lover and the likelihood of signing the petition and future ethical purchasing habits. However, messages explicitly appealing to the animal lover identity did not significantly increase intentions, and perceiving oneself as an animal lover did not moderate receptivity to the messages.