Framing ecosystem services to change behavior: economic vs. cultural benefits debate overshadowed by political orientation, place attachment, and lakefront residence

Ecosystem services may serve as a powerful communications concept in that they frame environmental issues through their effects on human well-being. However, a debate has arisen about whether it is more effective in changing people’s behaviors to frame services as providing material, monetary benefits, or to focus on the nonmaterial, cultural benefits associated with human-nature relationships. Using an online survey (N = 292), we examined the effects on concern, behavioral intentions, and action of video messages about cyanobacteria blooms in Lake Champlain, Vermont, USA, that focused on ecosystem services framed as economic or cultural benefits, both individual and collective, along with the roles of political orientation, lakefront residency, personal relevance, information recall, place attachment, and socio-demographics. Place attachment strongly predicted behavioral intentions and personal relevance of the messages. However, the messages did not affect any outcome variables except when considering lakefront residency. Not only did lakefront residents report greater place attachment, but respondents who received the Individual Cultural benefits message found it more personally relevant, resulting in greater behavioral intentions than those receiving the Collective Cultural benefits message. Open-ended questions revealed that negative reactions to certain messages and feelings of ecological grief may also be influencing behavior. We explored what the lack of a main treatment effect and the presence audience segmentation effects could mean for communicators and researchers interested in environmental behavior change. We conclude that while cultural benefit-focused messages may not affect change through short, one-way communications, they could still have an impact when incorporated into longer, more interactive approaches.