The “Green Persuasion Effect” of Negative Messages: How and When Message Framing Influences Tourists’ Environmentally Responsible Behavior

Tourist activities may harm the environment, making tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior particularly important in tourism research. This research investigates the persuasion effect of message framing in environmental protection reminders on environmentally responsible behavior. Through five studies employing both field and controlled experiments and different measures of environmentally responsible behavior across varied tourism scenarios, we demonstrate that negatively (vs. positively) framed messages more effectively increase environmentally responsible behavior. Specifically, negatively framed messages are more effective in enhancing tourists’ environmental awareness, which triggers more environmentally responsible behavior. Furthermore, we identify social class as a moderator of message framing effectiveness, showing that negatively framed messages are more persuasive for lower-class tourists, whereas positively framed messages are more persuasive for upper-class tourists. These findings advance knowledge on message framing and tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior, reconcile prior research, and offer practical guidance for destinations to encourage environmentally responsible behavior among tourists.