The persuasive route to sustainable mobility: elaboration likelihood model and emotions predict implicit attitudes

Persuasive communication campaigns are often used to promote proenvironmental actions, even though their effectiveness has been mixed. Previous research has tested cognitive-based models in explaining proenvironmental choice, but few studies have examined the potential impact of emotional dimensions. This experimental study tests the persuasive effect of argument quality, source expertise, and emotions on the implicit attitudes toward sustainable travel choices. This was a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects research design with an additional measured variable of involvement with the topic of sustainable transport. A video including the experimental manipulations was presented, followed by the Implicit Association Test (IAT). Consistent with the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), in the case of high involvement, implicit attitudes were more positive in the condition of high-quality arguments, while in case of low involvement, implicit attitudes were more positive in the condition of high source expertise. In addition, the main effect of anticipated negative emotions was significant.