Research Magazine 2023

Who Cares More About the Environment, Those with an Intrinsic, an Extrinsic, a Quest, or an Atheistic Religious Orientation?: Investigating the Effect of Religious Ad Appeals on Attitudes Towards the Environment Denni Arli, Patrick van Esch, and Yuanyuan Cui

Journal of Business Ethics, 2022

OVERVIEW

While scientists agree that climate change is a growing, human-made threat to our planet, people all over the world, including people of faith, remain divided for reasons not yet fully explained. Studies 1 and 2 explore the impact of consumers’ religious orientation—religion as an end in itself (intrinsic), a means to an end (extrinsic), a journey toward understanding (quest), or a false ideology (atheism)—on their attitudes toward the environment, focusing on the effects of advertisements promoting recycling with and without religious cues. Study 3 examines environmental identity as a causal mechanism and the moderating effect of political views on consumers’ lack of belief in climate change. Results show that religious people are less committed than atheists to recycling and otherwise remediating the environment and reversing climate change. Practically, they indicate that advertising campaigns should seek endorsement from religious leaders and dissemination through the religious institutions they represent.

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