29 pages, via online journal, Using an online between-subject experiment, this study tested the effects of message framing (gain vs. loss), reference point (self vs. other), and modality (text vs. infographics) in the scenario of recycling promotion. The findings identified that modality determines under what circumstances message strategies make a difference in risk perception and optimistic bias. In particular, only when paired with infographics and other-referencing point are loss-framed messages more effective than gain-framed messages in increasing risk perception and reducing the self-other gap in perceived benefits. Moreover, risk perception variables and the self-other risk perceptual gap were significant predictors of promoted behavioral intentions.
This article traces the emergence of the basic paradigm for early diffusion research created by two rural sociologists at Iowa State University, Bryce Ryan and Neal C. Gross. The diffusion paradigm spread to an invisible college of midwestern rural sociological researchers in the 1950s and 1960s, and then to a larger, interdisciplinary field of diffusion scholars. By the late 1960s, rural sociologists lost interest in diffusion studies, not because it was ineffective scientifically, but because of lack of support for such study as a consequence of farm overproduction and because most of the interesting research questions were thought to be answered."