Persuasion Under Pressure: Trust-Based Communication for Climate Resilience
Presentation Type
None
In Person or Zoom Presentation
In-Person
Location
Student Union Event Center
Start Date
17-11-2025 2:00 PM
End Date
17-11-2025 2:25 PM
Presentation Description/Abstract
Despite general agreement that trust in a source increases a message’s persuasiveness, developing strategic messaging to increase perceived trustworthiness remains a challenge. This project tests a novel trust-building script for motivating extreme heat risk motivation to identify opportunities to simultaneously motivate sustainable adaptations to climate risk and rebuild trust in climate governance. Specifically, this study (N = 699) used a randomized controlled experiment to investigate if explicit appeals to trust and direct references to source trustworthiness might inadvertently trigger a backfire effect, reducing rather than increasing perceived trustworthiness. This presentation will share the experiment’s results as statistical analyses and applied best practice recommendations for sustainability stakeholders.
Persuasion Under Pressure: Trust-Based Communication for Climate Resilience
Student Union Event Center
Despite general agreement that trust in a source increases a message’s persuasiveness, developing strategic messaging to increase perceived trustworthiness remains a challenge. This project tests a novel trust-building script for motivating extreme heat risk motivation to identify opportunities to simultaneously motivate sustainable adaptations to climate risk and rebuild trust in climate governance. Specifically, this study (N = 699) used a randomized controlled experiment to investigate if explicit appeals to trust and direct references to source trustworthiness might inadvertently trigger a backfire effect, reducing rather than increasing perceived trustworthiness. This presentation will share the experiment’s results as statistical analyses and applied best practice recommendations for sustainability stakeholders.