社会公德角度的对错判断:公益传播中正负激励效果的调节变量

Abstract

本文提出社会公德角度对于浪费的对错认知可能是正负面标语发挥作用的重要调节变量。本文首先基于某高校宿舍用水免费和用电付费的情况开展现场实验,在浪费; 免费水"的现场实验中,负面标语比正面标语更有效地节约了用水量;浪费付费电的现场实验显示正面标语比负面标语效果更好。之后以食物消费假想情景实验,进; 一步验证了从社会公德角度的对错判断是正负激励效果的调节变量。

Public Service Communication is the activity aimed to promote the; public-interest actions based on the interests of whole society. In the; field of organizational behaviors, incentive strategies include positive; incentives and negative incentives. It was found that positive; incentives could strengthen correct behaviors, while the negative; incentives worked in avoiding wrong behaviors. This paper aimed to; explore whether such positive/ negative incentives can work in the; domain of public service communication. The prerequisite of the above; proposal is the judgement about wasting. It was argued that it would be; judged as wrong if the wasted resource was free, but it would be judged; as not wrong if the wasted was paid. A university offered perfect; conditions of conducting field experiments to test the proposal as its; students use water for free but need to pay for the electricity in their; dormitories. The paper first designed two field experiments to test the; above assumptions. Experiment 1 was about water saving. The water is; free in the university. It included 3 groups. In the positive incentive; group the slogan of "saving water is great" was posted in the bathrooms; of all dormitories, while in the negative incentive group, the posted; slogan was "wasting water is not cool!" In the control group, no slogan; was posted. The results showed, compared with the control group, the; positive incentive slogan did not significantly decrease the amount of; water usage (p = .239), but the negative incentive slogan did decrease; the amount of water usage significantly (p = .048). Experiment 2 was; about electricity saving. Students need to pay for the usage of; electricity in the university. The experiment design and procedure are; similar to experiment 1. The positive (negative) incentive slogans were; posted under the electricity meter outside of the dormitories. No slogan; was posted in the control group. The data of electricity consumption; were recorded during the past 6 months. There was significant difference; (p = .038) between the control group and the positive incentive group; but no significant difference (p = .902) between the control group and; negative incentive group. The experiment 1 and 2 suggested people; reacted to the positive and negative insensitive slogans differently; depending on the wasted resource was free or charged. The post check; revealed that wasting free-offered goods was indeed recognized as; severer "wrong" behavior than wasting the goods paid for. To test the; hypothesis in one domain, the paper designed a 3 (Slogans: control vs.; positive incentive slogan vs. negative incentive slogan) x 2 (payment:; free vs. charge) between subjects experiment. In the free condition, the; participants were asked to imagine the self-service lunch was for free; as it was the university anniversary; but in the charge condition, it; described the self-service lunch had to be paid for. Each condition was; embedded with positive (vs. negative vs. none) slogans depending on the; different slogan group. The participants then evaluated the food saving; intension. The results showed, if the lunch was free, the negative; slogan was more effective than no slogan (p < .001) and positive slogan; (p < .001). By contrast, if the lunch was charged, the positive slogan; was more effective than no slogan (p < .001) and negative slogan (p <; .001). The three experiments imply that in the public service; communication, when the public think "I am not wrong", we should adopt a; positive incentive strategy to persuade the public to take the right; actions; otherwise, a negative incentive strategy should be adopted.