Communication strategies for moral rebels: How to talk about change in order to inspire self-efficacy in others,WIREs Climate Change

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Communication strategies for moral rebels: How to talk about change in order to inspire self-efficacy in others
WIREs Climate Change ( IF 9.4 ) Pub Date : 2022-04-27 , DOI: 10.1002/wcc.781
Claire Brouwer ₁ , Jan‐Willem Bolderdijk ₂ , Gert Cornelissen ₁ , Tim Kurz ₃

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Current carbon-intensive lifestyles are unsustainable and drastic social changes are required to combat climate change. To achieve such change, moral rebels (i.e., individuals who deviate from current behavioral norms based on ethical considerations) may be crucial catalyzers. However, the current literature holds that moral rebels may do more harm than good. By deviating from what most people do, based on a moral concern, moral rebels pose a threat to the moral self-view of their observers who share but fail to uphold that concern. Those observers may realize that their behavior does not live up to their moral values, and feel morally inadequate as a result. Work on “do-gooder derogation” demonstrates that rebel-induced threat can elicit defensive reactance among observers, resulting in the rejection of moral rebels and their behavioral choices. Such findings suggest that advocates for social change should avoid triggering moral threat by, for example, presenting nonmoral justifications for their choices. We challenge this view by arguing that moral threat may be a necessary ingredient to achieve social change precisely because it triggers ethical dissonance. Thus, instead of avoiding moral justifications, it may be more effective to harness that threat. Ethical dissonance may offer the fuel needed for observers to engage in self-improvement after being exposed to moral rebels, provided that observers feel capable of changing. Whether or not observers feel capable of changing, however, depends on how rebels communicate their moral choices to others—how they talk about change.

中文翻译：

道德反叛者的沟通策略：如何谈论改变以激发他人的自我效能

当前的碳密集型生活方式是不可持续的，需要进行剧烈的社会变革来应对气候变化。为了实现这种改变，道德反叛者（即基于伦理考虑偏离当前行为规范的个人）可能是关键的催化剂。然而，目前的文献认为，道德叛逆者可能弊大于利。通过偏离大多数人的行为，基于道德关注，道德反叛者对他们的观察者的道德自我观构成威胁，这些观察者分享但未能坚持这种关注。那些观察者可能会意识到他们的行为不符合他们的道德价值观，并因此感到道德上的不足。关于“行善者贬损”的研究表明，反叛引起的威胁会引起观察者的防御反应，从而拒绝道德反叛者及其行为选择。避免引发道德威胁，例如，为他们的选择提供非道德的理由。我们通过认为道德威胁可能是实现社会变革的必要因素来挑战这一观点，正是因为它引发了道德失调。因此，与其避免道德上的正当理由，不如利用这种威胁更有效。道德上的不和谐可能会为观察者在暴露于道德反叛者后进行自我提升提供所需的燃料，前提是观察者觉得有能力改变。然而，观察者是否觉得有能力改变，取决于叛逆者如何将他们的道德选择传达给他人——他们如何谈论改变。

更新日期：2022-04-27

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