Dataset Information

You vs. us: framing adaptation behavior in terms of private or social benefits.

ABSTRACT: Private actions to mitigate and adapt to climate change may have benefits to both the individual and society. In some cases, an individual may be motivated by appeals that highlight benefits to others, rather than to oneself. We test whether such prosocial framing influences information-seeking behavior to address wildfire risk among homeowners. In a field experiment across ten communities in western Colorado, property owners (n = 2977) received a postcard from their local fire department highlighting the impact of risk mitigation to either "your property" (private benefits) or "our community" (social benefits). The postcard directed recipients to visit a personalized webpage on wildfire risk. Overall, 10.5% of property owners visited their personalized risk webpage. There was little difference in webpage visitation between those who received the social (11.3%) rather than the private (9.7%) benefits message (χ ² = 1.74, p = 0.19). However, response may depend on a property owner's relationship to the community. Those who reside within the community (as opposed to out-of-town owners) or who were in an evacuation zone during a recent wildfire were more likely to visit their webpages after receiving the social benefits message. How homeowners view their contributions to shared risk and whether simple changes in messaging influence prosocial behavior can inform efforts to address climate-exacerbated hazards.

Supplementary information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10584-022-03400-4.

SUBMITTER: Byerly Flint H

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9483271 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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You vs. us: framing adaptation behavior in terms of private or social benefits.

Byerly Flint Hilary H Cada Paul P Champ Patricia A PA Gomez Jamie J Margoles Danny D Meldrum James R JR Brenkert-Smith Hannah H

Climatic change 20220916 1-2

Private actions to mitigate and adapt to climate change may have benefits to both the individual and society. In some cases, an individual may be motivated by appeals that highlight benefits to others, rather than to oneself. We test whether such prosocial framing influences information-seeking behavior to address wildfire risk among homeowners. In a field experiment across ten communities in western Colorado, property owners (<i>n</i> = 2977) received a postcard from their local fire department ...[more]

PMID: 36157475

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Project description:Technologies, such as smartphones or wearables, take a central role in our daily lives. Making their use meaningful and enjoyable requires a better understanding of the prerequisites and underpinnings of positive experiences with such technologies. So far, a focus had been on the users themselves, that is, their individual goals, desires, feelings, and acceptance. However, technology is often used in a social context, observed by others or even used in interaction with others, and thus shapes social dynamics considerably. In the present paper, we start from the notion that meaningful and/or enjoyable experiences (i.e., wellbeing) are a major outcome of technology use. We investigate how these experiences are further shaped by social context, such as potential spectators. More specifically, we gathered private (while being alone) and public (while other people are present) positive experiences with technology and compared need fulfillment and affective experience. In addition, we asked participants to imagine a change in context (from private to public or public to private) and to report the impact of this change on experience. Results support the idea of particular social needs, such as relatedness and popularity, which are especially relevant and better fulfilled in public than in private contexts. Moreover, our findings show that participants experience less positive affect when imaginatively removing the present others from a formerly public interaction, i.e., when they imagine performing the same interaction but without the other people present. Overall, this underlines the importance of social context for Human-Computer Interaction practice and research. Practical implications relate to product development, e.g., designing interactive technologies that can adapt to context (changes) or allow for context-sensitive interaction sets. We discuss limitations related to the experimental exploration of social context, such as the method of data collection, as well as potential alternatives to address those limitations, such as diary studies.

Dataset Information

You vs. us: framing adaptation behavior in terms of private or social benefits.

Supplementary information

Publications

You vs. us: framing adaptation behavior in terms of private or social benefits.

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