Sonny Rosenthal

Signaling the green sell: : the influence of eco-label source, argument specificity, and product involvement on consumer trust

Consumers cannot verify green attributes directly and must rely on such signals as eco-labels to authenticate claims. Using signaling theory, this study explored which aspects of eco-label design yield more positive effects. The study uses a 2 (argument specificity: specific versus general) × 2 (label source: government versus corporate) × 2 (product involvement: low versus high) experimental design (n = 233). Specific arguments consistently yield greater eco-label trust and positive attitudes toward the product and label source, but only with low-involvement products is source important, with corporate labels yielding more positive attitudes. Findings are discussed in terms of theoretical and managerial implications.

If We Seek, Do We Learn? Predicting Knowledge of Global Warming

Derived from the risk information seeking and processing model (RISP), this study sought to isolate predictors of the publics knowledge of global warming. Using a national sample ( N = 805), multiple regression yielded a number of significant relationships among 13 moderators. Notably, the number of media sources used for information about global warming, information seeking effort, and general education were relatively strong predictors of knowledge. Counter to expectations, informational subjective norms were inversely related to knowledge.

Seeking Information About Climate Change: Effects of Media Use in an Extended PRISM

This study replicates and extends the planned risk information seeking model (PRISM) in the context of impersonal risk by incorporating media use as an antecedent of risk information seeking intention. Results indicate that the model applies equally well to Singaporeans’ climate change information seeking intention as it does in the context of personal health information, suggesting that the model is generalizable across different risk and cultural contexts. Findings suggest that media use is an important source of perceived knowledge and, indirectly, sufficiency threshold, which clarifies the role of actual information seeking in risk perceptions and future information seeking.

Applying the Theory of Planned Behavior and Media Dependency Theory: Predictors of Public Pro-environmental Behavioral Intentions in Singapore

Applying the theory of planned behavior and media dependency theory, this study examines the effects of attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control (PBC), media dependency, traditional media attention, Internet attention, and interpersonal communication on two types of pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs)—green-buying and environmental civic engagement. Regression analysis of a nationally representative survey of adult Singaporeans (N = 1168) indicated that attitude, PBC, media dependency, traditional media attention, and interpersonal communication were positively associated with green-buying. Notably, traditional media attention, as well as interpersonal communication, moderated the influence of media dependency on green-buying behavior. In addition, attitude, descriptive norms, media dependency, Internet attention, and interpersonal communication positively predicted environmental civic engagement. Findings suggest the importance of communication factors in the adoption of the two PEBs.

Efficacy Beliefs in Third-Person Effects

People generally believe they are less susceptible than others to influences of media, and a growing body of research implicates such biased processing, or third-person perception, in public support for censorship, a type of third-person effect. The current study extends research of the third-person effect by studying two efficacy-related concepts in the context of sexual content in films. Analysis of cross-sectional data from 1,012 Singaporeans suggests that people exhibit self-other asymmetries of efficacy beliefs: They believe others are less capable than they are of self-regulation and that censorship is more effective at restricting others’ access to sexual content in films. Furthermore, the former belief was directly related to the belief that others are more susceptible to negative influence, and thus was indirectly related to support for censorship; whereas the latter belief was directly related to support for censorship. Results may help distinguish the roles of self-regulation and government censorship as bases of local media standards.

Measuring Differentials in Communication Research: Issues With Multicollinearity in Three Methods

Models of communication processes sometimes require the computation of the difference between two variables. For example, information insufficiency is the difference between what people know and what they think they need to know about an issue, and it can motivate information seeking and processing. Common methods that compute this differential may bias model estimates as a function of the correlation between the differentiated variables and other variables in the model. This article describes the general form of Cohen and Cohens (1983) analysis of partial variance for computing differentials and analyzes simulated data to contrast that method with two alternative methods. The discussion recommends the use of the general form of the Cohen and Cohen method in other areas of communication research, such as studies of third-person perception.

Expectancies and Motivations to Attend an Informal Science Lecture Series.

This study explored the expectancies and motivations that prompt audiences to attend a university science lecture series. The series features talks by science experts from the host campus and around the USA. Each lecture typically attracts between 300 and 600 attendees, including middle and high school student groups, university students, and families and adults from the area. We conducted 47 semi-structured interviews with attendees in order to evaluate their expectancies and motivations. A template analysis of the interviews was grounded in social cognitive and self-determination theories. Results suggest that participants were mostly driven by intrinsic motivations and acquired strong sensory outcome expectancies, such as novelty and activity. Participants also held physical outcome expectancies, such as social expectancies, though to a lesser extent. Both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations to attend the lecture series were associated with expectancies held prior to the event. Of those expectancies, the novelty, entertainment, and social outcomes were dominant. Other noteworthy outcome expectancies include status and self-reactivity. Parents and teachers held outcome expectancies, not only for themselves, but also for their children and students who attended the talks with them.

Motivations to Seek Science Videos on YouTube: Free-Choice Learning in a Connected Society.

ABSTRACT Do individuals use video sharing sites in their free time to learn about science, and if so, why? This study takes a preliminary look at individual differences that motivate online science video seeking. Among 273 Singapore Internet users who participated in an online survey, most reported using YouTube during the previous week, and one-third reported using it to watch science videos. Hierarchical regression analysis explained 55% of the variance in their intention to seek science videos during the subsequent week. Significant predictors of interest were seeking-related subjective norm, enjoyment of science, and informational use of YouTube. Although these results do not distinguish YouTube from other venues of informal science learning, they help characterize YouTube as such a venue and have implications for developing online video content to promote science learning in everyday life.

Climate change and technology: examining opinion formation of geoengineering

The term “climate change” has evolved from what was originally a technical term employed by scientists into a symbolic referent involving complex social, political, and moral considerations that have spurred worldwide debate. As evidence of the anthropogenic influence on the Earth’s climate has grown over the past few decades, climate change has come to be viewed as a primary challenge to be confronted in the twenty-first century. Geoengineering, or climate engineering, is a set of large-scale technological interventions proposed to offset climatic changes. This study seeks to understand which factors contribute to, or alternatively, detract from public acceptance of geoengineering through robust path analytic modeling of public perceptions of geoengineering that may better serve the academic community and decision-makers. This study finds that familiarity, epistemic trust, preference for alternative solutions to climate change, and media consumption are interrelated in their influences on opinions toward geoengineering proposals and support for funding further geoengineering research. Such predictive modeling can enable risk communicators and policy-makers with vital information to support anticipatory governance approaches to policy initiatives and improve future public engagement and communication about geoengineering.

Perceived Influence of Proenvironmental Testimonials

ABSTRACT Recommendations for communicators to make environmental issues more concrete in public align with the tenets of exemplification theory. Audiences may also engage with messages that they perceive as influencing them more than others, an outcome that aligns with the third-person effects framework. What is not well known is how these two areas of research intersect, namely, how exemplars about environmental issues may impact perceived message influence on the self-relative to others. This study examines the effects of testimonials on the perceived influence of environmental messages. Two experiments, each conducted simultaneously in Singapore and the Midwestern US, suggest that university students perceive themselves to be more influenced than others by proenvironmental messages. The second experiment shows that this perceptual bias is related to message desirability and individuals’ environmental values. Both experiments reveal location-specific effects, which is useful for understanding how to communicate environmental problems to global audiences.