Experimental evidence of the impact of framing of actors and victims in conservation narratives.

ABSTRACT: Media narratives play a crucial role in framing marine conservation dilemmas by depicting human actors, such as fish consumers or the fishing industry, as responsible for negative effects of their actions on species and ecosystems. However, there is little evidence documenting how such narratives affect preferences for reducing bycatch. Behavioral science research shows that people can act less prosocially when more actors are responsible for a collective outcome (responsibility diffusion effect) and when more victims need to be helped (compassion fade effect); thus, the media's framing of actors and victims may have a significant effect on preferences. We conducted the first test of responsibility diffusion and compassion fade in a marine context in an online experiment (1548 participants

SUBMITTER: Shreedhar G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10092605 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature