Time Framing Effects on People’s Time Perception towards Pro-Environmental Intention.

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Time Framing Effects on People’s Time

Perception towards

Pro-Environmental Intention.

Results based on Lake Study & Pro-Environmental intentions

(Days vs. Months vs. Years)

Master Thesis

Marketing Management

Nabila Sheba – S2937247

n.sheba@student.rug.nl

nabilasheba.s@gmail.com

Supervisors:

Mehrad Moeini-Jazani

Sumaya Albalooshi

Faculty Economics and Business

Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

Duisenberg Building, Nesttelbosje 2, 9747 AE Groningen, The Netherlands

http://www.rug.nl/feb

Date of submission: 25 January 2021

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Acknowledgement

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Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Background

Lately, there are numerous types of ruination that are unfortunately continuously impacted by pollution. Pollution itself brings various impacts to the environment across the globe. One of the real impacts caused by pollution itself is water pollution, particularly towards lakes. The environmental conditions of lakes around the world have continued to deteriorate due to climate change and overexploitation resulting from human activities within and outside of their basins. Only slightly less than one percent of all the water resources on earth is the freshwater that is readily available for human use with approximately ninety percent of this portion belonging to lakes and their basins. In other words, deterioration of lake environment can heavily affect water resources. In September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” including Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular SDG6 on clean water and sanitation and SDG15 on biodiversity and ecosystem services. I believe that ILEC is expected to contribute to achieving SDGs (Takemoto, 2018). It is directly impacting the water quality in lakes and other freshwater resources around the globe. It can take many forms from industrial, agricultural, or municipal sources; a few common examples include pesticides, herbicides, sewage, and litter (Mishra, 2017).

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6 information provided by Eurobarometer (2017), there are about 100,000 chemicals traded in Europe, of which approximately 30,000 have a production volume higher than 1 t/y and have been on the market for over 20 years. Water pollution is identified as one of the main environmental concerns of European citizens (Eurobarometer, European Union, 2017), and chemicals from industrial waste are generally perceived as the main cause of marine environmental contamination (Jacobs et al., 2015).

Besides the industrial source of pollution there is also another major source that could affect lakes’ health both directly and indirectly. For many decades, numerous Environmental Psychologists have tried to study the relationship between environment settings and human personal behavior as well as how they affect one another. Environmental psychologists rely on many theoretical approaches. Most Environmental psychologists examine the effects of environmental stimuli on human perception and responses in one way or another. According to Ittelson (1973), a man is never encountered independent of the situation through which he acts, nor is the environment ever encountered independent of the encountering individual. To predict a human behavior, transactional perspective to human-environmental relations requires that we study equally people, their perceptions, intentions, purposes, and the physical settings in which they transact.

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7 Regarding the marketing and psychology point of view, there are several strategies used to encourage people more in their awareness and intentions toward certain concerns. In this context, one of the advantageous strategies would be applying the duration time frame which refers to the determination of which duration frame would be applicable the most to different people to make a suitable environmental campaign for supporting the lakes’ health. According to Bagchi and Davis (2016), numbers are ubiquitous in modern life. They objectively quantify the environment and often serve as inputs in decision-making. The conversion effect between days, months, and year brings the contrasting effect to people’s mind. The biases occur in people perspective and judgement from the different time frame often arise from tacit assumptions underlying the conduct of conversation, which license pragmatic inferences that go beyond the literal meaning of a speaker’s utterance (Hilton [1995] and Schwarz [1994, 1996]).

The aim of this study is to investigate on how the duration time frame that would be divided to 3 aspects which are days, months, and year affects people’s perspectives and behaviors toward lake health. Furthermore, this study will also investigate which duration time frame that would be mostly impacting pro-environmental intentions towards lake health condition. This paper draws on Anthony and Hilker (2020) approach in analyzing these such behaviors that are impacting the lake health issue. Additionally, this study will further investigate how people’s current perception, their personality traits, and demographic background brings impact on how the duration time frame impacting people’s perspectives and behaviors toward lake health condition. Furthermore, this study serves a highly reliable data from the impact of 3 different time frame elements toward people’s point of view on lake health condition from high quality respondents in United States, which has one of the highest rates of environment degradation, including the damaged lakes health and ecosystem. This study was constructed by applying quantitative research method. A survey was distributed to 828 respondents. The survey itself provided 3 different scenarios which assigned respondents to either days, months, or year point of view scenario. However, unfortunately after numerous careful checks were done by the author the numbers of eligible responses were decreased into 812 respondents.

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1.2 Research Question

Therefore, the main research questions of this study are:

1. How does time perception bring significant mediation impact on the relationship between time frame-based campaign and the likelihood to increase pro-environmental intentions towards lake health condition?

2. How does political orientation bring significant moderation impact towards the mediation effect of time perception on the relationship between time frame-based campaign and likelihood to increase pro-environmental intentions towards lake health condition?

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1.2.1 Conceptual Model

With the purpose of making the research question to be more coherence, the conceptual model is provided as follow:

• Dependent variable: Likelihood to increase pro-environmental intentions for lake o Urgency

o Willingness to volunteer o Willingness to donate

• Independent variable: Time frame campaign (days vs. months vs. years) o Numbers of day time frame

o Numbers of month time frame o Numbers of year time frame • Mediating variable: Time perception • Moderating variable: o Political orientation o Ecological value Time frame campaign Likelihood to increase pro-environmental intentions for Lake

Political orientation Ecological value Time

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Chapter 2: Literature Review

2.1 Theoretical Framework

2.1.1 Time Frame

Time frames refers to the duration time frame and includes 3 element which are numbers of day, month, and year, has a strong impact towards the possibility on how people perceive and acts according to the message delivered to them. According to Thomas and Morwitz (2019), consumers in everyday life encounter many quantitative expressions. Even when the values are precise and well defined, consumers’ understanding of quantitative expressions often deviates from their objective meaning. Previous research identified several cognitive heuristics that contribute to these biases. According to Lewis and Oyserman (2015), people often delay in taking actions toward future events, finding the present more pressing and assuming that their future self can always take actions later, only to find that time has run out when the future arrives. Failure to act soon enough has enormous real-word consequences. These possibilities in delaying or even not looking at what the consequences will be in the future are the biases that rooted from different understanding and on how people perceive the messages they received.

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2.1.2 Mediating Variables 2.1.2.1 Time Perception

Time perception refers to the sense of time measurement according to the duration of the unfolding of events as cognitively perceived. People’s perception of time determines the course of action that they are likely to take in the present. If one perceives that the future is disconnected from the present, then one’s actions and behaviors is not likely to be taken with its future consequences in consideration. A study by Lewis and Oyserman (2015) on the effect of time metrics on people’s perceived connection and congruence with their future selves explains the psychological motivations behind people’s current actions in respect to the future events. Its findings show that time metrics influences the psychological relevance of the future self, as opposed to the perceived importance or distance of future events. People who think about the future in days rather than years are found to be more psychologically connected to their present self, and accordingly, the study showed that the people who perceived so were likely to start planning for their savings four times sooner. A key factor that is used in the study as one of the bases for its predictions is time granularity and its influence on the use of time metrics to consider future events relative to their temporal distance. To illustrate, an object that is closer in distance is perceived with greater detail than one that is far, which decreases in detail the further away it is. Likewise, events that are farther in the future are considered in a more granular way by use of months and years, as opposed to days.

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2.1.3 Moderating Variables 2.1.3.1 Political orientation

The political orientation of an individual in varying ways, though not necessarily, reflect the personal values that that individual holds. For example, in the USA political orientation is significantly correlated with people’s environmental values, wherein a conservative identification has a significantly negative effect on climate change beliefs as well as beliefs in anthropogenic climate change, whereas those with liberal orientations have significantly higher climate change beliefs (Ziegler, 2017). The beliefs of self-identified conservatives and republicans are also less consistent with the scientific consensus regarding the characterization of climate change, and further express lesser concern about global warming, as compared to liberals and Democrats (McCright, 2010).

Research by McCright (2010), examined the moderating effect of political orientation on pro-environmental values, beliefs, and attitudes, and showed that political orientation moderates the association between educational attainment and climate change beliefs. Both ideology and party identification play a key role in the perceived understanding on beliefs about climate change, as well as personal concern about global warming. This is because left-wing politicians generally tend to promote mainstream scientific knowledge regarding climate change, while their right-wing counterparts tend to challenge them by promoting the views of contrarian scientists.

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2.1.3.2 Ecological value

Views based on biospheric values, which is a value orientation that considers the costs and benefits effect towards the environment, have been linked to higher concern about the environment and higher tendencies for pro-environmental behaviour (De Groot and Steg, 2009). Consumers’ attitudes towards environmental protection are enhanced by biospheric values, such that they are more willing to actively engage in pro-environmental purchase behaviours, and that these values reduce their perceived inconvenience which are associated with eco-friendly products. This is grounded upon the premise that values serve as standards for evaluating actions, people, and events (Nguyen et al., 2016). Pro-environmental behaviours are also encouraged by altruistic values because such behaviours are often associated with high societal benefits. (De Groot and Steg, 2009).

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2.1.4 Pro-Environmental Intentions towards Lake Health

Through the product choice and garbage disposal decisions, consumers will contribute directly or indirectly to environmental deterioration (Gooch, 1995). Moreover, according to Grunert (1993), it has been estimated that 30–40% of environmental degradation is attributable to human behaviors and activities. Furthermore, as the time goes by, it has been proven by seeing that lately so many studies published, and discussions constructed due to the increment of awareness in pro-environmental intentions and behaviors. Pro-environmental behaviors may be opposed to immoderate, clearly perceptible individual benefits, whereas the benefits for the environment are shared by the total population, are uncertain, and are distant in time and place (Vlek and Keren, 1992). However, the domain of environmentally relevant behaviors, self-reported measures of behavior as well as intentions can differ from actual performance (e.g., Luyben, 1982; Stern and Oskamp, 1987; Tarrant and Cordell, 1997). This might have contributed to these relatively high means.

Furthermore, according to Abdul-Muhmin (2007), intentions, represent definite plans to act, and presuppose existence of facilitating conditions such as availability of recycling facilities and environmentally friendly product alternatives. In most of the developing world, such conditions are generally relatively less developed, and in some cases virtually non-existent. Yet, environmental protection is just as relevant in these contexts and policy makers might be interested in identifying ways to promote environmental friendliness. Such intentions are nowadays being developed and supported by numerous NGOs all over the world.

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2.1.5 Urgency

The sense of urgency, or the perceived importance of an underlying matter relative to the time constraints, influences people’s level of commitment towards solving or accomplishing tasks. An examination of the significance of urgency regarding people’s behavior toward accomplishing future tasks involves a closer look at three key sub-factors, namely, the deadline effect, risk perception, and future orientation. According to Zhu et al., (2018), the quantity of resources that people commit towards a certain task is mediated by their perceived difficulty of the task, which, in turn, is influenced by the perceived time distance, or imminence, of the task, as determined by its deadline. The study found that longer incidental deadlines lead to increased resource commitment, specifically in respect to time and monetary resources. The degree by which the deadline effect impacts the perceived difficulty of a task is dependent on the type of task (Zhu et al., 2018). A well-defined task intrinsically has well-defined solutions, while a less-defined task has no definitive solutions. Naturally, and as shown by the aforementioned research, well-defined tasks attenuate the deadline effect towards the perceived difficulty of a task.

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2.2 Hypotheses

More formally, from the theoretical framework and the objectives, this study hypothesizes:

H1: Time perception brings significant mediation impact on the relationship between

time-framed-based campaign and the likelihood to increase pro-environmental intentions towards lake health conditions.

H2: Political orientation brings significant moderation impact towards the mediation effect of

time perception on the relationship between time frame-based campaign and likelihood to increase pro-environmental intentions towards lake health condition.

H3: Ecological value brings significant moderation impact towards the mediation effect of

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Chapter 3: Research Method

3.1 Research Design

A research design is a blueprint for the collection, measurement, and analysis of a data, based on the research questions of the study (Sekaran and Bougie, 2016). Constructing an appropriate research design is crucial for conducting research. Research design is the appropriate logic, which links the data collection to the research questions (Yin, 2017). For today’s scholars, staying up to date—that is, understanding and using the best available and most appropriate research methods—clearly matters (Eden et. al., 2020). This study was intended to deeply explore on how duration time frame campaign affects the likelihood to increase pro-environmental intentions towards lake health condition and on how people’s current perception toward pro-environmental intention for lake health, personality traits and demographic background moderate the relationship between time frame-based campaign and likelihood to increase pro-environmental intentions towards lake health condition. In purpose of fulfilling its objectives, the quantitative research method was applied in this study.

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3.2 Research Method

3.2.1 Participants and Design

In purpose of receiving high quality and validity responses, this study was addressed to United States citizens. Eight hundred twelve participants (49.8% male, 0.7% others; Mage = 39.9) were

asked to fill out the online questionnaire. The dependent variable of interest was the proportion of participants selecting the high likelihood of having pro-environmental intentions.

3.2.2 Procedures

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3.2.3 Data Analysis 3.2.3.1 Urgency

Urg = β1TF + β2TP + β3Pol+ β4TP*Pol + ε Urg = β1TF + β2TP + β3EV+ β4TP*EV + ε

Ø Urg : Urgency Ø TF : Time Frames Ø TP : Time Perception Ø Pol : Political Orientations Ø EV : Ecological Value

3.2.3.2 Willingness to Volunteer

WilVol = β1TF + β2TP + β3Pol+ β4TP*Pol + ε WilVol = β1TF + β2TP + β3EV+ β4TP*EV + ε

Ø WilVol : Willingness to Volunteer

Ø TF : Time Frames

Ø TP : Time Perception Ø Pol : Political Orientations Ø EV : Ecological Value

3.2.3.3 Willingness to Donate

WilDon = β1TF + β2TP + β3Pol+ β4TP*Pol + ε WilDon = β1TF + β2TP + β3EV+ β4TP*EV + ε

Ø WilDon : Willingness to Donate

Ø TF : Time Frames

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Chapter 4: Discussion and Conclusion

Table 1. Respondent distribution per time frame

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4.1 Urgency

Mediator: Time Perception Moderators:

4.1.1 Ecological Value

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4.1.2 Political Preference

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4.2 Willingness to Volunteer

Ecological value is proven to not bringing any significant interaction impact towards the mediation effect from relationships between time frame and willingness to volunteer, b = -.059, 95% CI [-.143, .026], t = -1.367, p > .05, indicating that the time perception mediation effect from relationship between time frame and willingness to volunteer is not moderated by the

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4.3 Willingness to Donate

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Appendices

i.

Questionnaire

Consent Dear Participant,

On behalf of this survey's entire team, we would like to welcome you on board of this study. We are running a large-scale survey to explore people’s opinions on topics related to the natural environment. The brief survey consists of several independent parts that are clearly marked. Please be aware that the survey also includes brief writing tasks. Based on similar past studies and our estimation, this study takes approximately 7 minutes to complete. The aggregate results of this survey will be used for developing environmental policies. So far, we have collected data from a large and representative sample of U.S. citizens, and we will continue collecting data until the beginning of the next year.

Please note that there are no right or wrong answers to the questions of this survey. We are only interested in your honest responses. The quality of your answers is highly

appreciated. We would also like to emphasize that your responses are anonymous, and your participation is entirely voluntary. Because policies will be developed based on the results of this survey, we kindly ask you to be attentive at all stages of this survey. Please do not leave your PC/device or switch your browser before completing the survey.

o I have read and understood the consent above and would like to participate in this survey.

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a. Scenario 1 (Day-Time Frame)

Imagine that you live in a city with a large natural lake nearby. You and your city residents have recently been warned about the approaching death of the lake’s ecosystem due to excessive discharge of pollutants. According to experts, the lake has been polluted for a long while now. A close examination of the lake condition has revealed that a high concentration of synthetic chemical compounds, resulting from industrial and human (e.g., individuals’ and households’ daily consumption) activities, has contaminated the lake to a point where its ecosystem may not be recoverable if preventive measures will not be implemented in time on

the local manufacturers and citizens.

At this rate, experts estimate that the lake’s ecosystem will collapse in approximately 900 days.

b. Scenario 2 (Month-Time Frame)

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36

c. Scenario 3 (Year-Time Frame)

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37 Q1. How much time do you feel has left before the lake's ecosystem collapse?

o Very little o 2 o 3 o 4 o 5 o 6 o Very much

Q2. How long do you perceive the duration between now and when the lake’s ecosystem will collapse? o Very short o 2 o 3 o 4 o 5 o 6 o Very long

Q3. How likely are you to volunteer for the NGO to help save the lake? o Extremely unlikely

o Moderately unlikely o Slightly unlikely

o Neither likely nor unlikely o Slightly likely

o Moderately likely o Extremely likely

Q4. What percentage of your free time are you willing to donate to help save the lake?

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38 Q5. Imagine that you decided to volunteer for the NGO to solicit donations to save the

lake. In your opinion, what should be the default value the NGO should ask people to donate? (in $)

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500

Q6. Imagine that the lake’s ecosystem could be recovered using new technologies if every citizen donates $50 to the city council to carry out the project. How willing would you be to donate that money?

o Not at all o 2 o 3 o 4 o 5 o 6 o Very much

Q7. How urgently does it feel for you to help save the lake? o Not urgently at all

o 2 o 3 o 4 o 5 o 6 o Extremely urgently

Q8. How concerned are you about the current status of the lake's ecosystem? o Not concerned at all

o 2 o 3 o 4 o 5 o 6 o Extremely concerned

Q9. In your opinion, how accurate is the forecast for the collapse of the lake’s ecosystem? o Extremely inaccurate

o Inaccurate

o Somewhat inaccurate

o Neither inaccurate nor accurate o Somewhat accurate

o Accurate

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39 Q10. In your opinion, how believable is the forecast for the collapse of the lake’s

ecosystem?

o Not believable at all o 2 o 3 o 4 o 5 o 6 o Very believable

Q11. Please indicate to what extent you agree or disagree with each of the following sentences:

Humans have the right to modify the natural environment to suit their needs

Strongly disagree (1) Somewhat disagree (2) Disagree (3) Neither Agree Nor Disagree (4)

Agree (5) Somewhat _{Agree (6)} _{Agree (7)}Strongly

Humans are severely abusing the planet

Plants and animals have the same right to exist as humans

Nature is strong enough to cope with the impacts of modern industrial nations

Humans were meant to rule over the rest of nature

The balance of nature is very delicate and easily upset

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Demographics Section

Q12. How do you feel right now?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Negative

o

Positive Sad

o

Happy Stressed

o

Relaxed Anxious

o

Calm Aroused

o

Still Bad

o

Good

Q13. By any chance, do you live nearby a lake? o Yes

o No

Q14. What is your age? ____

Q15. What is your gender? o Male

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41 Q16. What is the last educational degree you have achieved?

o Less than high school/ still attending high school o High school diploma or GED

o Associate or vocational degree o College/University degree o Master's degree o PhD/ Doctoral student o Doctoral degree o Other _____ Q17. I am currently... o Full-time employed o Part-time employed o Self-employed

o Unemployed but looking for a job o Retired

o Housewife/Househusband o Unable to work/Other

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42 Q19. Please indicate the income bracket that best describes your personal gross annual

income: o Under $10,000 o $10,000 to $19,999 o $20,000 to $29,999 o $30,000 to $39,999 o $40,000 to $49,999 o $50,000 to $59,999 o $60,000 to $69,999 o $70,000 to $79,999 o $80,000 to $89,999 o $90,000 to $99,999 o $100,000 to $109,999 o $110,000 to $119,999 o $120,000 to $129,999 o $130,000 to $139,999 o $140,000 to $149,999 o $150,000 to $159,999 o $160,000 to $169,999 o $170,000 to $179,999 o $180,000 to $189,999 o $190,000 and above

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43 Q21. Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as a Republican, a Democrat, an

Independent, or something else? o Republican

o Democrat o Independent o Other _____ o No preference

Q22. To what extent do you consider yourself to be liberal or conservative on most political and social issues?

o Very conservative o 2 o 3 o 4 o 5 o 6 o Very liberal

Q23. By any chance, did you temporarily leave your PC/Device during the survey, OR were you interrupted while taking the survey? If yes, please let us know

approximately in which section of the survey this occurred. o Yes _____

o No

Q24. Were you alone during the time you were completing this survey? o Yes

o No

Q25. Were you listening to music or watching TV while completing the survey? o Yes

o No

Q26. Based on your honest judgment, how quiet was your surrounding environment when you were completing this survey?

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

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44 Q27. How often did you check your mobile during this survey?

o Never did o Only once o A few times o Occasionally

o Almost all the time/ constantly

Q28. Which device did you use to fill out the survey? o PC

o Laptop o Tablet o Smartphone o Other _____

Q29. How do you evaluate your level of English proficiency? Not good at all / Very poor Excellent

Q30. Based on your honest judgment, how attentive were you during this survey? Not attentive at all Very attentive

Q31. Have you ever participated in any survey that involved some parts of this survey or tasks similar to it? If yes, can you specify which part(s)?

o Yes _____ o No

Q32. Was there any section of this survey that was confusing to you or that you had difficulty understanding what to do? If yes, please specify.

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45 Q33. Unfortunately, we are currently facing a COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S and the

world. Please indicate to what extent you agree or disagree with the following statements concerning COVID-19.

Not at all agree 2 3 4 5 6 Very much agree I am worried

about how the pandemic affects

my life

o

I frequently check the news

about COVID-19

o

I fear that I may lose my job or income due to this pandemic

o

The pandemic has affected my mental health

o

I fear I may not be able to pay my bills

o

I am enjoying the self-quarantine period at home

o

I do not mind staying at home at all

o

Q34. In the scenario (day) you read at the beginning of the survey, there was an estimate on how soon the lake's ecosystem may collapse. What was that time estimate? o 500 days

(46)

46 Q35. In the scenario (month) you read at the beginning of the survey, there was an

estimate on how soon the lake's ecosystem may collapse. What was that time estimate? o 20 months o 30 months o 45 months o 10 months o 65 months

Q36. In the scenario (year) you read at the beginning of the survey, there was an estimate on how soon the lake's ecosystem may collapse. What was that time estimate? o 2 years

o 2.5 years o 3.5 years o 1.5 years o 5 years

Q37. Please indicate whether you have experienced any of the following events in your life.

Yes, I have No, I have not

Bitten by a wasp

o

Dancing in a party

o

Playing cards

o

Suffered a fatal heart attack

o

Reading a novel

o

Answering a survey

o

(47)

47 Q38. Please tell us what day was yesterday and briefly write about what you did.

________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________

Q39. Please tell us what day was yesterday and briefly write about what you did.

________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________

Q40. What do you think of this survey and its aim? Do you have any suggestions to help us improve our survey in the future?

Time Framing Effects on People’s Time Perception towards Pro-Environmental Intention.