Now or never: Discovering the psychology of communicating tipping points for social change

Blokpoel, Mark (2025) Now or never: Discovering the psychology of communicating tipping points for social change. Bachelor thesis, Psychology.

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Abstract

Effective climate communication is essential to motivate public engagement, yet much of it still relies on fear-based messaging. This study investigated the effectiveness of positive tipping point messaging, focusing on the roles of emotional activation and social norms. The study used a between-subjects experimental design (N = 450) that randomly assigned subjects to a control, efficacy or efficacy + social norm framing condition. Results showed that although emotional activation and perceived norms were strong predictors of collective action intention, the framing conditions produced no significant increase. A moderated moderation model and a mediation analysis were also tested. A small interaction was found between efficacy framing and emotional activation, but there were no other significant results. These findings suggest that intrinsic psychological factors may outweigh the effects of extrinsic message framing in driving collective action. Practical implications suggest that climate campaigns may benefit more from creating emotional connections and emphasizing social norms than refining structural message frames.

Item Type:	Thesis (Bachelor)
Supervisor name:	Deshpande, A.A.
Degree programme:	Psychology
Differentiation route/Track:	None [Bachelor Psychology]
Date Deposited:	24 Jul 2025 09:10
Last Modified:	24 Jul 2025 09:10
URI:	http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/5726

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