TY - JOUR

T1 - A trust inoculation to protect public support of governmentally mandated actions to mitigate climate change

AU - Spampatti, Tobia

AU - Brosch, Tobias

AU - Trutnevyte, Evelina

AU - Hahnel, Ulf J.J.

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2024 The Authors

PY - 2024/11

Y1 - 2024/11

N2 - In a world barreling down into a worsening climate crisis, negative persuasive attacks to necessary climate policies are major threats to the public's support of governmental mandates to mitigate climate change. To protect against such attacks, here we introduce and investigate the effect and the treatment heterogeneity of the trust inoculation, a psychological inoculation strategy designed around the influence of trust as a key social dimension of persuasion. Across three preregistered studies, in one Swiss state (N = 389), in seven European countries (N = 2805), and in the United States (N = 3586), and in a mega-analysis (N = 6697), we provide evidence that inoculating citizens with the trustworthiness of key energy stakeholders protects citizens' support for renewable energy against multiple negative persuasive attacks (δ = 0.16). Whereas baseline trust in key energy stakeholders did not moderate the effects, the trust inoculation selectively protected the citizens most susceptible to negative persuasive attacks, i.e., participants with high biospheric values. Study 3 showed that the trust inoculation, rather than a simple trust message, is responsible for the protection from incoming persuasive attacks. Our findings demonstrate that the trust inoculation may serve as an easily implementable, and scalable umbrella strategy to engender a modest but significant protection for governmental mandates against multiple negative persuasive attacks.

AB - In a world barreling down into a worsening climate crisis, negative persuasive attacks to necessary climate policies are major threats to the public's support of governmental mandates to mitigate climate change. To protect against such attacks, here we introduce and investigate the effect and the treatment heterogeneity of the trust inoculation, a psychological inoculation strategy designed around the influence of trust as a key social dimension of persuasion. Across three preregistered studies, in one Swiss state (N = 389), in seven European countries (N = 2805), and in the United States (N = 3586), and in a mega-analysis (N = 6697), we provide evidence that inoculating citizens with the trustworthiness of key energy stakeholders protects citizens' support for renewable energy against multiple negative persuasive attacks (δ = 0.16). Whereas baseline trust in key energy stakeholders did not moderate the effects, the trust inoculation selectively protected the citizens most susceptible to negative persuasive attacks, i.e., participants with high biospheric values. Study 3 showed that the trust inoculation, rather than a simple trust message, is responsible for the protection from incoming persuasive attacks. Our findings demonstrate that the trust inoculation may serve as an easily implementable, and scalable umbrella strategy to engender a modest but significant protection for governmental mandates against multiple negative persuasive attacks.

KW - Energy acceptance

KW - Persuasion

KW - Prebunking

KW - Psychological inoculations

KW - Trust

KW - Management studies

KW - Psychology

KW - Sustainability sciences, Management & Economics

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85196270610&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.jesp.2024.104656

DO - 10.1016/j.jesp.2024.104656

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85196270610

VL - 115

JO - Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

JF - Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

SN - 0022-1031

M1 - 104656

ER -