BRIDGING THE VALUE-ACTION GAP

Abstract

Using an online charitable dictator game experiment (n=214), we explored how different, randomly assigned experimental treatments (social media posts) containing anti-climate-change sentiment (n=77, 36%), misinformation (n=74, 34.6%) and a control condition (n=63, 29.4%) impacted the real donation behaviour of pro-environmentalists to an environmental non-governmental organisation. Participants were recruited through social media (Facebook, Linked-In, and Reddit). We found that the treatments resulted in minimal differences to donation likelihood and amount. We used the same charitable dictator game experiment (n=56) to explore how these experimental treatments containing anti-climate-change sentiment (n=20, 35.7%), misinformation (n=26, 46.4%) and a control condition (n=10, 17.9%) impacted the social media response behaviour of pro-environments, as well as their real donation behaviour. We found that the treatments resulted in differences to reply frequency (p=0.02935) and minimal differences to reply tone (p=0.05698), while donation behaviour was unaffected. Donation behaviour did not stratify with demographic factors with the exception of geographic location (p=0.04825). These results suggest that the donation behaviour of pro-environmentalists is resistant to climate-change misinformation and anti-climate change opinions presented through social media, while these treatments may influence social media reply behaviour. Further research into the effect of this reply behaviour on other social media users and online spaces as well as whether these observations apply to the general population is necessary. These results also call into question the necessity of moderating misinformation and climate scepticism in online spaces, as there is some evidence that this content does not negatively affect prosocial behaviour, and instead may encourage cross-attitudinal discussion.