Zoo Biology 9999 : 1–7 (2015)
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Quantifying the Impact of Wellington Zoo’s Persuasive Communication Campaign on Post-Visit Behavior Edith MacDonald* Wellington Zoo, Wellington, New Zealand Zoos potential to facilitate visitor conservation behavior is commonly articulated. Few studies, however, have quantified whether zoos’ conservation messages result in visitors implementing the behavior. To test if zoo conservation messages are adopted at home, I implemented a persuasive communication campaign which advocated keeping cats indoor at night, a behavior that is a potential solution to cats depredating native wildlife. Furthermore, I tested if a public commitment (signing a pledge card) strengthened the relationship between on-site intention to engage in the behavior and actual implementation of the behavior at home. The conservation behavior was included in the twice-daily animal presentations in the amphitheater. A sample of 691 visitors completed a survey as they exited the amphitheater that measured their recall of the conservation behavior and intention to engage in the behavior at home. The last 311 visitors to complete the survey were asked to sign a pledge card which was publicly displayed in the amphitheater. Six weeks after their zoo trip, visitors were contacted and asked if they had implemented the behavior. Recall of the conservation behavior was high (91% for control, 100% for pledge group) and the entire pledge group had implemented the behavior whereas just half (51%) of the control group did. Furthermore, signing the pledge card strengthened the relationship between onsite intention and at home behavior (r ¼ 1.0 of for the pledge group and r ¼ 0.21 for the control group). Overall, the zoo’s conservation message was recalled and behavior implemented at © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. home. Zoo Biol. 9999:1–7, 2015.
Keywords: conservation psychology; environmental education; MIRPS; persuasive communication
INTRODUCTION Exhibitions which display aspects of the natural world, like zoos, museums, and botanic gardens, may play a key role in facilitating visitor conservation behavior at home. However, more than a decade ago a comprehensive literature review by The Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ MultiInstitutional Research Program (MIRPS) found little evidence of visitors adopting conservation behaviors after a trip to the zoo [Dierking et al., 2002]. The majority of past zoo research focused on public perception of animals, environmental attitudes, audience research, visitor flow, visitor demographics and evaluation of single species exhibits. The conservation messages that were advocated in zoos were subtle and short-term (i.e., onsite actions) and overall there were missed opportunities to advocate visitor conservation actions at home [e.g., Broad and Weiler, 1998]. While there have been some studies in the decade since that quantify the impact of a zoo visit on conservation behavior [e.g., Smith et al., 2008; Kemmerly and Macfarlane, 2009;
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Clayton et al., 2013; Pearson et al., 2014] progress has not been proportional to the educational claims of zoos [Fennell, 2013] and greater research and advancement is needed in this area [Mason, 2000; Fraser and Wharton, 2007; Hughes, 2013]. To design, implement, and evaluate behavior change campaigns towards visitors, zoos should look towards the Edith MacDonald’s current address: Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 55 Cable St, Wellington, New Zealand 6011. Correspondence to: Edith MacDonald, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 55 Cable St, Wellington, New Zealand 6011. E-mail: [email protected]
Received 05 May 2014; Revised 24 November 2014; Accepted 08 December 2014
DOI: 10.1002/zoo.21197 Published online XX Month Year in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).
2 MacDonald social sciences in which behavior change is guided by theoretical frameworks that identify and incorporate the cognitive processes most likely to influence behavior [Kollmuss and Agyeman, 2002]. An effective behavior change campaign incorporates the principles of social marketing [MacFadyen et al., 1999; Weinreich, 1999; Kotler et al., 2002], community-based social marketing [McKenzieMohr and Smith, 1999; Pickens, 2002], and environmental and social psychology [Manfredo, 1992; Fishbein and Cappella, 2006; Steg and Vlek, 2009]. A persuasive communication campaign has multiple steps depending on the theoretical framework adopted and the outcome of each step contributes to the next [Cappella, 2006; Fishbein and Cappella, 2006]. Although these methods have been highly successful in affecting behavior change in health campaigns [e.g., Dinoff and Kowalski, 1999] and noncaptive wildlife encounters [e.g., Orams, 1996; Hughes, 2013], they have been underutilized by zoos [Morgan and Hodgkinson, 1999; Smith, 2006; Ballantyne et al., 2007]. In this article, I assessed a persuasive communication campaign and assessed its impact on post-visit behavior. The second part of the study assessed if the use of commitments increased post-visit conservation behavior to bridge the gap between onsite intention and behavior at home [Ballantyne and Packer, 2011; Hughes, 2013]. To date, the effectiveness of conservation advocacy campaigns has been assessed by measuring visitor intention to engage in the behavior (measured at the time the message is heard onsite) but the link between intention and actual implementation of the behavior at home is weak [Hughes, 2013]. In a metaanalysis of health behaviors, Sheeran [2002] found almost half of all participants who intended to engage in the behavior did not implement the behavior at home. Commitments, in the form of pledging or binding to a specific behavior [Kiesler, 1971], are an effective tool to increase actual implementation of the behavior [McKenzie-Mohr et al., 2012]. Individuals who make the commitment are most likely influenced by cognitive consistency, having their publically stated intention and their future behavior synchronize [McKenzie-Mohr, 2011; Rubens et al., 2013]. Pledge cards have been successful in increasing and sustaining behavior change with seatbelt use [Nimmer and Geller, 1988], recycling, [Wang and Katzev, 1990], and plastic bags [Rubens et al., 2013] but have not been applied to conservation behavior in zoos on a wide scale. Cats Inside at Night Campaign A specific and locally relevant behavior was selected to advocate to zoo visitors: bringing cats inside at night. Pest species, for example, stoats, rats, possums, and cats, are the single largest threat to New Zealand’s biodiversity [Environment New Zealand, 2007]. New Zealand has the highest rate of cat ownership per capita in the world, with 51% of homes having at least one cat [Argante, 2008]. An estimated 16–24 million animals a year are killed by cats in New Zealand Zoo Biology
[Clifton, 2001]. Cats have been the driving force of several New Zealand bird extinctions, including the Stephen’s Island Wren (Traversia lyalli) [McCarthy, 2005], and cats are a predator of juvenile kiwi [McLennan et al., 1996]. A review of New Zealand environmental and conservation organizations found that New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society, and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals all advocate keeping cats inside at night to protect native wildlife. Results from previous work [MacDonald, 2011] found that while a majority of conservation experts (68%) recognized the impact of invasive species on New Zealand wildlife, very few zoo visitors (13%) listed invasive species as a threat. Furthermore, of the Wellington Zoo visitors that brought their cat inside at night only 8% of visitors did so to mitigate the cat’s impact on wildlife with the majority (54%) attributing the action to cat health and safety reason. Thus, a persuasive communication campaign at Wellington Zoo was designed and implemented advocating keeping cats inside at night. METHODS Study Site Wellington Zoo is located in New Zealand’s capital city (41°170 S 174°270 E) and was the countries first zoo opened in 1906. The zoo is governed by a board of trustees appointed by the City Council. The zoo is located on 13 hectares of public green space and is approximately five kilometers from the countries parliament and city center. In 2009/10, Wellington Zoo had 183,286 visitors. Most of the visitors were local residents and half of all Wellington residents visited the zoo during the year [Wellington Zoo, 2010]. Visitor demographics based on self-submitted exit questionnaires showed a female bias (57.9%). The zoo houses approximately 500 individual animals comprising over 100 species. Animal Presentations The targeted conservation behavior, keeping cats inside at night, was integrated into the twice-daily animal presentations conducted in the zoo’s three-hundred seat amphitheater. The content and methods to deliver the conservation messages followed a social marketing approach [MacDonald, 2011]. First, the beliefs associated with keeping cats inside at night were identified. Results indicated owners intent to bring a cat inside at night was correlated to beliefs that focused on the benefits to the cat of being inside or the positive impact on the owner. Thus to increase the frequency of visitors bringing cats inside, these beliefs were incorporated in the animal presentation as described below. However, the intention to bring a cat inside at night was not associated with the negative impact the cat has on wildlife and so was not incorporated into the content of the animal presentation.
Post Visit Conservation Behavior 3
Staff members participated in an initial training programme which consisted of six workshops facilitated by the author (a senior manager at the zoo at the time of the study) or external contractors which emphasized bestpractice in public speaking, face-to-face interpretation, and eliciting elaboration in visitors [Ham, 1992]. The second training programme was a two-day, peer-to-peer intense workshop, which reinforced the initial training programme. The animal presentations were approximately ten to fifteen minutes in length, featured three animals and were conducted by two staff members. One presentation featured all native species and the second presentation exotic species. Staff were taught to say the conservation behavior and the associated beliefs statements at least three times during the talk (e.g., “keep your cat inside at night, they would rather be warm inside with you”). The presenter would also elicit suggestions from the audience on how to mitigate the impact of cats on native species and then advocate keeping cats inside at night and incorporate the associated beliefs. For example, the presenter would demonstrate the serval’s jumping and catching ability and then probe the audience to link the serval to their domestic cat and the impact on native species. At the conclusion of the presentation, the presenter reiterated the conservation behavior and the associated beliefs. Participants Visitors over the age of 18 were approached as they left the daily amphitheater presentations between March 2 and May 5, 2010 for the control group and the between May 6 and August 14, 2010 for the pledge group. Subjects were selected based on the next to pass method (an imaginary line is drawn and the first visitor to pass the line was approached). In the case of a group, the person selected for the questionnaire was chosen based on the nth member of the group, with n randomly chosen each day. Staff were positioned as not to disrupt visitor flow and ensure visitor comfort while completing the questionnaire. Refusal rate to complete the survey was less than 2%. The pledge card was administered to visitors after they had completed the survey. Upon handing in the completed survey, visitors were asked to sign a pledge card that reinforced the conservation message they heard in the presentation (bring cats in at night) and hang the signed pledge card on the amphitheater wall. Visitors took home a tear-away portion of the pledge card in the form of a sticker to remind them of their commitment. If visitors declined to sign the pledge card, they were thanked for completing the survey. Staff noted on the completed survey if visitors completed the pledge card or declined. Eighty-nine visitors (26%) signed and posted the pledge in the amphitheater. Questionnaires The first eight questions were adapted from a commercially available questionnaire based on communi-
cation theory [Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre, 2006] and has been used in other zoo research [i.e., Weiler and Smith, 2009]. The questions measured two cognitive constructs: satisfaction and relevancy. Satisfaction was assessed as the main motivation for a visitor to go to the zoo is fun and enjoyment but there is speculation that advocating specific conservation actions to visitors may detract from the visitor experience and be perceived as nagging [Smith et al., 2010b] or a high level of enjoyment may be incompatible with visitor receptivity to conservation messages [Carr and Cohen, 2011]. Satisfaction was measured with four questions (e.g., the talk I attended today was enjoyable/unenjoyable) on a 7-pont Likert scale. The second cognitive construct, relevancy, was measured as people are more likely to take action on issues they feel personally connected to or are relevant to their daily life [Petty and Cacioppo, 1996]. Relevancy is often an underemphasized but critical component to encouraging conservation behavior [Novacek, 2008]. Relevancy was measured by four questions (e.g., the talk I attended today was relevant/not relevant to me) on a 7-pont Likert scale. Respondent’s future intention was measured by asking them how often they will keep their cat inside in the next month (never, once a month, once a week, a few times a week, or daily). The final question asked if this was an increase from the previous month to measure the direct effect of the zoo’s conservation message has on visitor intention and to control for visitors already engaging in this behavior prior to their zoo visit. After six weeks, I contacted visitors who provided follow-up details. Respondents were first called (three attempts were made), then emailed, and finally sent a survey via the mail. A script was followed when contacting visitors via the phone. The email and letter contained an introductory message identical to the phone script and the survey. The follow-up survey repeated the questions from the first survey and also included questions to measure the impact the animal presentation had on keeping cats inside at night. To measure message recall, visitors were asked if they recalled a conservation behavior that was suggested and to state it. Behavior change was measured by asking visitors if they had engaged in the behavior since their zoo visit. If they answered yes, they were asked how often (daily/few times a week/once a week/once a month/other). To determine the baseline of their behavior prior to the zoo visit and establish the impact of the zoo persuasive campaign, visitors were asked how often they engaged in the behavior prior to their zoo visit (daily/few times a week/once a week/once a month/other). This question also served to double check any response bias as this question was asked in the initial survey and a comparison between the two time frames was made. Finally, as a direct measure of the impact of the zoo’s persuasive campaign, visitors were asked if they have increased bringing their cat inside at night because of what they heard at Wellington Zoo and asked why or why not. Zoo Biology
4 MacDonald Data Analysis Because of the small sample size in the follow-up groups, descriptive statistics and non-parametric analysis were conducted. Correlations were calculated using Spearman’s rho when one variable was dichotomous (i.e., behavior was/was not attributed to the zoo message; visitor engaged/ did not engage in the behavior). The Fisher’s exact test was conducted to determine any difference between the pledge and control group. RESULTS Seven hundred and one surveys were collected and ten were removed from the analysis due to incompleteness for a total of 691. Two hundred and eighty-nine visitors (42%) had cats, a similar rate to previous research [Argante, 2008]. Fifty-one respondents completed the follow-up questionnaire from the control group (n ¼ 390). Allowing for those who did not have cats constitutes a 33% response rate. Eighty-nine of the three hundred and eleven respondents in the pledge group (26%) signed the pledge card. Twenty-three respondents completed the follow-up questionnaire from the pledge group. Allowing for those who did not have cats this was a 17% response rate. Of the 23 follow-up respondents in the pledge group, 17 had signed the pledge card and 6 had not. Overall, 67 of the 74 follow-up respondents (91%) could recall the conservation behavior with 100% of respondents who signed the pledge card recalling the behavior. Fifty-one respondents (70%) stated they were engaging in the behavior because of the zoo’s advocacy campaign, 20% of respondents were already engaging in the behavior, and 10% did not alter their behavior after their trip to the zoo. The pledge card increased behavior change. All respondents in the pledge group reported changing their behavior after the zoo visit compared to 57% of the control group. The correlation between on-site intention and implementing the behavior at home for the control group was 0.21 (P > .05) and there was perfect correlation (r ¼ 1.0; P < .001) between onsite stated intention and implementing the behavior at home for all respondents who signed the pledge card. There was no difference between the control
group (54%) and the pledge group (58%) attributing their behavior change to the zoo messaging (Table 1). Visitor satisfaction (F2,70 ¼ 0.480, P > .05) and relevancy (F2,70 ¼ 1.726, P > .05) of the amphitheater presentation did not differ between the control group and the pledge group nor was there a significant difference in satisfaction (F2,70 ¼ 0.314, P > .05) and relevancy (F2,70 ¼ 0.189, P > .05) between the two groups six weeks after their visit (Table 1). There was no significant correlation between satisfaction of the animal presentation and engaging in the behavior; r (71) ¼ .008, P > .05. The zoo’s persuasive communication campaign had a bimodal impact on the frequency of the targeted behavior (Fig. 1). The first group (19%) commenced the behavior to varying frequency as a result of the zoo campaign and the second group (15%) shifted from engaging in the behavior a few times a week to daily. For the pledge group, the bimodal impact was larger with 29% of respondents commencing the behavior and 24% increasing the behavior to daily frequency. Of note are the 37% (n ¼ 23) of respondents who were already keeping their cat inside daily. DISCUSSION Wellington Zoo visitors returned home and implemented the conservation behavior communicated at the amphitheater presentations. Six weeks after a visit, 70% of visitors reported bringing cats inside at night with more than half attributing the behavior change to the message they heard at the Zoo. Furthermore, signing a pledge card strengthened the implementation of the behavior (100% of respondents) six weeks after a visit to the Zoo. My results support Wellington Zoo’s conservation education goals: a visit to the zoo empowers visitors to implement a conservation behavior at home. Carr and Cohen [2011] question a zoo’s ability to relay conservation messages because the zoo’s focus of fun and entrainment may hinder or conflict with educational experiences and impede the communication of serious conservation messages to visitors: “it may also be claimed that as leisure sites, at least in the eyes of the general public, zoos are inappropriate places for learning as visitors do not
TABLE 1. Descriptive statistics of the control and pledge group Pledge group
Recalled conservation message Satisfaction Relevancy Changed behavior Attributed change to zoo message Correlation between intention and behavior
Zoo Biology
Control group (n ¼ 51)
Signed pledge (n ¼ 17)
Did not sign pledge (n ¼ 5)
45 (88%) 6.51 þ/ .080 6.22 þ/ .118 29 (57%) 20 (54%) 0.254
17 (100%) 6.397 þ/ .069 6.235 þ/ .080 17 (100%) 9 (58%) 1.0
5 (83%) 6.541 þ/ .208 5.723 þ/ .369 5 (83%) 4 (80%) 0.122
Post Visit Conservation Behavior 5
Fig. 1. Percentage of increase in visitor behavior one month after a zoo visit. The arrows represent the percentage of visitors that increased bringing cats in at night from one frequency prior to their zoo visit to a greater frequency after their visit. The ovals represent the percentage of visitors who did not change the frequency of their behavior after a zoo visit.
come prepared to be educated but instead have an expectation to be entertained (p179).” My study investigated the link between visitor satisfaction of a specific zoo experience (amphitheater presentation) and enacting the advocated conservation behavior at home. I found no relationship between engaging in the targeted behavior at home and satisfaction with the amphitheater presentation (r ¼ .008). Thus, Carr and Cohen’s [2011] concern that enjoyment of the zoo experience (measured by satisfaction in my study) would inhibit visitors attending to and enacting the conservation behavior advocated was not supported in this study. On the contrary, zoo visitors may be a biased sample of the general population with a predisposition to receive and act upon advocated educational messages [Falk and Adelman, 2003]. Commitments were effective in increasing the targeted behavior and bridging the gap between intention and behavior: 100% of visitors who signed a pledge card engaged in the behavior compared to 57% in the control group. My results are consistent with the use of commitments in other sustainable behaviors such as recycling [Werner et al., 1995] but greater than other post-visit studies conducted in informal learning environments [10–57%; Hughes, 2013; 38%; Smith et al., 2008]. The higher success rate in this study may be attributed to the integration of the beliefs associated with bringing cats in at night into the content of the animal presentation, an aspect novel to my study, but best-practice based on persuasive communication campaigns [McKenzie-Mohr and Smith, 1999]. Almost half of respondents (46% in the control group and 42% in the pledge group) did not attribute their behavior change to the zoo message. Smith et al. [2008] and Dierking et al. [2004] found similar attribution rates and note that visitor behavior may be influenced by sources other than the zoo
campaign. While this may also be true of my study, the targeted behavior of keeping cats in at night for conservation purposes was relatively novel to most zoo visitors compared to the well-known behaviors in the studies of Smith et al. [2008] and Dierking et al. [2004]. Previous research at Wellington Zoo [MacDonald, 2011] found few visitors brought their cats in at night as a way to mitigate their impact on native species (8% of respondents). Instead, the majority of respondents (54%) brought cats inside for cat health and safety reasons. Furthermore, during the time of this study there were no public campaigns about keeping cats inside at night in the Wellington City region [MacDonald, 2011]. Thus the likelihood of visitors being influenced from other external campaigns or sources to keep their cats inside at night is low. Another possibility for not attributing the behavior to the zoo message may be naïve psychology in which individuals place a greater weight on internal reasons for their behavior rather than conforming to external messages and norms [Pronin, 2007]. People are biased in their self-analysis and often attribute any conformity or change in their own behavior to self-interest or internal reasoning rather than the influence of others and external sources [Croker et al., 2009]. For example, Nolan et al. [2008] found participants in an energy conservation campaign were most effected by the normative behavior of others, their neighbors, and not self-serving reasons (e.g., to save the environment, for future generations, save money) but attributed their behavior change to self-serving reasons. Thus participants were inaccurate in perceiving themselves and external influences of their behavior. Future research should investigate the role of naïve psychology on zoo persuasive campaigns and assess any long term impacts on the behavior and the effectiveness of persuasive communication campaigns. Zoo Biology
6 MacDonald The persuasive communication campaign had a bimodal effect on the frequency of behavior with respondents either commencing the behavior or increasingly bringing cats in at night to daily with the effect almost doubling for those who signed a pledge card. While initiating novel behaviors has been very successful in non-zoo behavior change campaigns [McKenzie-Mohr, 2000; McKenzie-Mohr et al., 2012], these results contrast with the one other study to date [Smith et al., 2008] that compared zoo visitors’ initiation of a novel behavior versus increasing the rate of a current behavior. Smith et al. [2008] found initiation of a new behavior was more difficult than increasing frequency of an existing behavior and attributed it to the need to understand the beliefs that are triggers and facilitators of the advocated behaviors. My study incorporated the beliefs associated with bringing cats in at night into the communication campaign and may explain the success of visitors initiating a new behavior. My results reinforce the need for zoos to implement theorybased persuasive communication campaigns to meet their mission of fostering visitor conservation behavior at home [Ballantyne et al., 2011].
difference between initiating a novel behavior and increasing the frequency of a pre-existing behavior, in contrast to Smith et al. [2008]. With the rise of social media and digital technologies, the effectiveness of different communication channels need to be evaluated. Signs and face-to-face interpretation are currently the two main communication channels in zoos [Weiler and Smith, 2009; MacDonald, 2011] but newer media channels (e.g., Facebook) have been successful in recent zoo behavior change campaigns [Pearson et al., 2014]. Future research needs to explore the interdependencies between message content, targeted audience, and communication channel. In short, zoos must increase their commitment, development, and evaluation of theoretically-based persuasive communication campaigns if they are to meet their educational claims and be leaders in the field of conservation.
CONCLUSION
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My results support Wellington Zoo’s educational aspirations: zoo visitors to an animal presentation engaged in the advocated behavior at home when the communication campaign was theoretically based and followed a persuasive framework [Smith et al., 2010a; Ballantyne and Packer, 2011; McKenzie-Mohr, 2011]. Zoos need to be more proactive in facilitating conservation behavior amongst their 700 million visitors [World Association for Zoos and Aquariums, 2013] and better utilize psychology and social marketing to understand the complex factors that influence behavior change and the detailed steps required to design and establish a successful persuasive communication campaign [Cannon et al., 1996; Kollmuss and Agyeman, 2002; Schultz, 2011; Pearson et al., 2014]. First, zoos need to select and advocate strong conservation messages, connecting visitors to animals is not enough and implying or assuming proenvironmental attitudes will result in pro-environmental behavior is a fallacy [Ballantyne and Packer, 2011; Schultz, 2011]. The selection of the targeted behavior must follow a prescriptive process [McKenzie-Mohr, 2011] to ensure the campaign is successful [e.g., Smith et al., 2011, 2012]. While there has been some progress in the decade since the MIRPS report [e.g., Clayton et al., 2013; Pearson et al., 2014] more theory based research is required to advance our knowledge of the effectiveness of zoo based behavior change campaigns. Due to the small sample size, a meta-analysis of zoo studies which compares different features that lead to future successful campaigns (e.g., advocating a novel behavior or a habit; initiating a new behavior or discontinuing a behavior; the effectiveness of different communication channels) is not possible, unlike the public health field [Snyder et al., 2004]. In my study, there was no significant
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the staff at Wellington Zoo who embraced and supported this research.
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Zoo Biology
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Quantifying the Impact of Wellington Zoo’s Persuasive Communication Campaign on Post-Visit Behavior Edith MacDonald* Wellington Zoo, Wellington, New Zealand Zoos potential to facilitate visitor conservation behavior is commonly articulated. Few studies, however, have quantified whether zoos’ conservation messages result in visitors implementing the behavior. To test if zoo conservation messages are adopted at home, I implemented a persuasive communication campaign which advocated keeping cats indoor at night, a behavior that is a potential solution to cats depredating native wildlife. Furthermore, I tested if a public commitment (signing a pledge card) strengthened the relationship between on-site intention to engage in the behavior and actual implementation of the behavior at home. The conservation behavior was included in the twice-daily animal presentations in the amphitheater. A sample of 691 visitors completed a survey as they exited the amphitheater that measured their recall of the conservation behavior and intention to engage in the behavior at home. The last 311 visitors to complete the survey were asked to sign a pledge card which was publicly displayed in the amphitheater. Six weeks after their zoo trip, visitors were contacted and asked if they had implemented the behavior. Recall of the conservation behavior was high (91% for control, 100% for pledge group) and the entire pledge group had implemented the behavior whereas just half (51%) of the control group did. Furthermore, signing the pledge card strengthened the relationship between onsite intention and at home behavior (r ¼ 1.0 of for the pledge group and r ¼ 0.21 for the control group). Overall, the zoo’s conservation message was recalled and behavior implemented at © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. home. Zoo Biol. 9999:1–7, 2015.
Keywords: conservation psychology; environmental education; MIRPS; persuasive communication
INTRODUCTION Exhibitions which display aspects of the natural world, like zoos, museums, and botanic gardens, may play a key role in facilitating visitor conservation behavior at home. However, more than a decade ago a comprehensive literature review by The Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ MultiInstitutional Research Program (MIRPS) found little evidence of visitors adopting conservation behaviors after a trip to the zoo [Dierking et al., 2002]. The majority of past zoo research focused on public perception of animals, environmental attitudes, audience research, visitor flow, visitor demographics and evaluation of single species exhibits. The conservation messages that were advocated in zoos were subtle and short-term (i.e., onsite actions) and overall there were missed opportunities to advocate visitor conservation actions at home [e.g., Broad and Weiler, 1998]. While there have been some studies in the decade since that quantify the impact of a zoo visit on conservation behavior [e.g., Smith et al., 2008; Kemmerly and Macfarlane, 2009;
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Clayton et al., 2013; Pearson et al., 2014] progress has not been proportional to the educational claims of zoos [Fennell, 2013] and greater research and advancement is needed in this area [Mason, 2000; Fraser and Wharton, 2007; Hughes, 2013]. To design, implement, and evaluate behavior change campaigns towards visitors, zoos should look towards the Edith MacDonald’s current address: Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 55 Cable St, Wellington, New Zealand 6011. Correspondence to: Edith MacDonald, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 55 Cable St, Wellington, New Zealand 6011. E-mail: [email protected]
Received 05 May 2014; Revised 24 November 2014; Accepted 08 December 2014
DOI: 10.1002/zoo.21197 Published online XX Month Year in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).
2 MacDonald social sciences in which behavior change is guided by theoretical frameworks that identify and incorporate the cognitive processes most likely to influence behavior [Kollmuss and Agyeman, 2002]. An effective behavior change campaign incorporates the principles of social marketing [MacFadyen et al., 1999; Weinreich, 1999; Kotler et al., 2002], community-based social marketing [McKenzieMohr and Smith, 1999; Pickens, 2002], and environmental and social psychology [Manfredo, 1992; Fishbein and Cappella, 2006; Steg and Vlek, 2009]. A persuasive communication campaign has multiple steps depending on the theoretical framework adopted and the outcome of each step contributes to the next [Cappella, 2006; Fishbein and Cappella, 2006]. Although these methods have been highly successful in affecting behavior change in health campaigns [e.g., Dinoff and Kowalski, 1999] and noncaptive wildlife encounters [e.g., Orams, 1996; Hughes, 2013], they have been underutilized by zoos [Morgan and Hodgkinson, 1999; Smith, 2006; Ballantyne et al., 2007]. In this article, I assessed a persuasive communication campaign and assessed its impact on post-visit behavior. The second part of the study assessed if the use of commitments increased post-visit conservation behavior to bridge the gap between onsite intention and behavior at home [Ballantyne and Packer, 2011; Hughes, 2013]. To date, the effectiveness of conservation advocacy campaigns has been assessed by measuring visitor intention to engage in the behavior (measured at the time the message is heard onsite) but the link between intention and actual implementation of the behavior at home is weak [Hughes, 2013]. In a metaanalysis of health behaviors, Sheeran [2002] found almost half of all participants who intended to engage in the behavior did not implement the behavior at home. Commitments, in the form of pledging or binding to a specific behavior [Kiesler, 1971], are an effective tool to increase actual implementation of the behavior [McKenzie-Mohr et al., 2012]. Individuals who make the commitment are most likely influenced by cognitive consistency, having their publically stated intention and their future behavior synchronize [McKenzie-Mohr, 2011; Rubens et al., 2013]. Pledge cards have been successful in increasing and sustaining behavior change with seatbelt use [Nimmer and Geller, 1988], recycling, [Wang and Katzev, 1990], and plastic bags [Rubens et al., 2013] but have not been applied to conservation behavior in zoos on a wide scale. Cats Inside at Night Campaign A specific and locally relevant behavior was selected to advocate to zoo visitors: bringing cats inside at night. Pest species, for example, stoats, rats, possums, and cats, are the single largest threat to New Zealand’s biodiversity [Environment New Zealand, 2007]. New Zealand has the highest rate of cat ownership per capita in the world, with 51% of homes having at least one cat [Argante, 2008]. An estimated 16–24 million animals a year are killed by cats in New Zealand Zoo Biology
[Clifton, 2001]. Cats have been the driving force of several New Zealand bird extinctions, including the Stephen’s Island Wren (Traversia lyalli) [McCarthy, 2005], and cats are a predator of juvenile kiwi [McLennan et al., 1996]. A review of New Zealand environmental and conservation organizations found that New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society, and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals all advocate keeping cats inside at night to protect native wildlife. Results from previous work [MacDonald, 2011] found that while a majority of conservation experts (68%) recognized the impact of invasive species on New Zealand wildlife, very few zoo visitors (13%) listed invasive species as a threat. Furthermore, of the Wellington Zoo visitors that brought their cat inside at night only 8% of visitors did so to mitigate the cat’s impact on wildlife with the majority (54%) attributing the action to cat health and safety reason. Thus, a persuasive communication campaign at Wellington Zoo was designed and implemented advocating keeping cats inside at night. METHODS Study Site Wellington Zoo is located in New Zealand’s capital city (41°170 S 174°270 E) and was the countries first zoo opened in 1906. The zoo is governed by a board of trustees appointed by the City Council. The zoo is located on 13 hectares of public green space and is approximately five kilometers from the countries parliament and city center. In 2009/10, Wellington Zoo had 183,286 visitors. Most of the visitors were local residents and half of all Wellington residents visited the zoo during the year [Wellington Zoo, 2010]. Visitor demographics based on self-submitted exit questionnaires showed a female bias (57.9%). The zoo houses approximately 500 individual animals comprising over 100 species. Animal Presentations The targeted conservation behavior, keeping cats inside at night, was integrated into the twice-daily animal presentations conducted in the zoo’s three-hundred seat amphitheater. The content and methods to deliver the conservation messages followed a social marketing approach [MacDonald, 2011]. First, the beliefs associated with keeping cats inside at night were identified. Results indicated owners intent to bring a cat inside at night was correlated to beliefs that focused on the benefits to the cat of being inside or the positive impact on the owner. Thus to increase the frequency of visitors bringing cats inside, these beliefs were incorporated in the animal presentation as described below. However, the intention to bring a cat inside at night was not associated with the negative impact the cat has on wildlife and so was not incorporated into the content of the animal presentation.
Post Visit Conservation Behavior 3
Staff members participated in an initial training programme which consisted of six workshops facilitated by the author (a senior manager at the zoo at the time of the study) or external contractors which emphasized bestpractice in public speaking, face-to-face interpretation, and eliciting elaboration in visitors [Ham, 1992]. The second training programme was a two-day, peer-to-peer intense workshop, which reinforced the initial training programme. The animal presentations were approximately ten to fifteen minutes in length, featured three animals and were conducted by two staff members. One presentation featured all native species and the second presentation exotic species. Staff were taught to say the conservation behavior and the associated beliefs statements at least three times during the talk (e.g., “keep your cat inside at night, they would rather be warm inside with you”). The presenter would also elicit suggestions from the audience on how to mitigate the impact of cats on native species and then advocate keeping cats inside at night and incorporate the associated beliefs. For example, the presenter would demonstrate the serval’s jumping and catching ability and then probe the audience to link the serval to their domestic cat and the impact on native species. At the conclusion of the presentation, the presenter reiterated the conservation behavior and the associated beliefs. Participants Visitors over the age of 18 were approached as they left the daily amphitheater presentations between March 2 and May 5, 2010 for the control group and the between May 6 and August 14, 2010 for the pledge group. Subjects were selected based on the next to pass method (an imaginary line is drawn and the first visitor to pass the line was approached). In the case of a group, the person selected for the questionnaire was chosen based on the nth member of the group, with n randomly chosen each day. Staff were positioned as not to disrupt visitor flow and ensure visitor comfort while completing the questionnaire. Refusal rate to complete the survey was less than 2%. The pledge card was administered to visitors after they had completed the survey. Upon handing in the completed survey, visitors were asked to sign a pledge card that reinforced the conservation message they heard in the presentation (bring cats in at night) and hang the signed pledge card on the amphitheater wall. Visitors took home a tear-away portion of the pledge card in the form of a sticker to remind them of their commitment. If visitors declined to sign the pledge card, they were thanked for completing the survey. Staff noted on the completed survey if visitors completed the pledge card or declined. Eighty-nine visitors (26%) signed and posted the pledge in the amphitheater. Questionnaires The first eight questions were adapted from a commercially available questionnaire based on communi-
cation theory [Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre, 2006] and has been used in other zoo research [i.e., Weiler and Smith, 2009]. The questions measured two cognitive constructs: satisfaction and relevancy. Satisfaction was assessed as the main motivation for a visitor to go to the zoo is fun and enjoyment but there is speculation that advocating specific conservation actions to visitors may detract from the visitor experience and be perceived as nagging [Smith et al., 2010b] or a high level of enjoyment may be incompatible with visitor receptivity to conservation messages [Carr and Cohen, 2011]. Satisfaction was measured with four questions (e.g., the talk I attended today was enjoyable/unenjoyable) on a 7-pont Likert scale. The second cognitive construct, relevancy, was measured as people are more likely to take action on issues they feel personally connected to or are relevant to their daily life [Petty and Cacioppo, 1996]. Relevancy is often an underemphasized but critical component to encouraging conservation behavior [Novacek, 2008]. Relevancy was measured by four questions (e.g., the talk I attended today was relevant/not relevant to me) on a 7-pont Likert scale. Respondent’s future intention was measured by asking them how often they will keep their cat inside in the next month (never, once a month, once a week, a few times a week, or daily). The final question asked if this was an increase from the previous month to measure the direct effect of the zoo’s conservation message has on visitor intention and to control for visitors already engaging in this behavior prior to their zoo visit. After six weeks, I contacted visitors who provided follow-up details. Respondents were first called (three attempts were made), then emailed, and finally sent a survey via the mail. A script was followed when contacting visitors via the phone. The email and letter contained an introductory message identical to the phone script and the survey. The follow-up survey repeated the questions from the first survey and also included questions to measure the impact the animal presentation had on keeping cats inside at night. To measure message recall, visitors were asked if they recalled a conservation behavior that was suggested and to state it. Behavior change was measured by asking visitors if they had engaged in the behavior since their zoo visit. If they answered yes, they were asked how often (daily/few times a week/once a week/once a month/other). To determine the baseline of their behavior prior to the zoo visit and establish the impact of the zoo persuasive campaign, visitors were asked how often they engaged in the behavior prior to their zoo visit (daily/few times a week/once a week/once a month/other). This question also served to double check any response bias as this question was asked in the initial survey and a comparison between the two time frames was made. Finally, as a direct measure of the impact of the zoo’s persuasive campaign, visitors were asked if they have increased bringing their cat inside at night because of what they heard at Wellington Zoo and asked why or why not. Zoo Biology
4 MacDonald Data Analysis Because of the small sample size in the follow-up groups, descriptive statistics and non-parametric analysis were conducted. Correlations were calculated using Spearman’s rho when one variable was dichotomous (i.e., behavior was/was not attributed to the zoo message; visitor engaged/ did not engage in the behavior). The Fisher’s exact test was conducted to determine any difference between the pledge and control group. RESULTS Seven hundred and one surveys were collected and ten were removed from the analysis due to incompleteness for a total of 691. Two hundred and eighty-nine visitors (42%) had cats, a similar rate to previous research [Argante, 2008]. Fifty-one respondents completed the follow-up questionnaire from the control group (n ¼ 390). Allowing for those who did not have cats constitutes a 33% response rate. Eighty-nine of the three hundred and eleven respondents in the pledge group (26%) signed the pledge card. Twenty-three respondents completed the follow-up questionnaire from the pledge group. Allowing for those who did not have cats this was a 17% response rate. Of the 23 follow-up respondents in the pledge group, 17 had signed the pledge card and 6 had not. Overall, 67 of the 74 follow-up respondents (91%) could recall the conservation behavior with 100% of respondents who signed the pledge card recalling the behavior. Fifty-one respondents (70%) stated they were engaging in the behavior because of the zoo’s advocacy campaign, 20% of respondents were already engaging in the behavior, and 10% did not alter their behavior after their trip to the zoo. The pledge card increased behavior change. All respondents in the pledge group reported changing their behavior after the zoo visit compared to 57% of the control group. The correlation between on-site intention and implementing the behavior at home for the control group was 0.21 (P > .05) and there was perfect correlation (r ¼ 1.0; P < .001) between onsite stated intention and implementing the behavior at home for all respondents who signed the pledge card. There was no difference between the control
group (54%) and the pledge group (58%) attributing their behavior change to the zoo messaging (Table 1). Visitor satisfaction (F2,70 ¼ 0.480, P > .05) and relevancy (F2,70 ¼ 1.726, P > .05) of the amphitheater presentation did not differ between the control group and the pledge group nor was there a significant difference in satisfaction (F2,70 ¼ 0.314, P > .05) and relevancy (F2,70 ¼ 0.189, P > .05) between the two groups six weeks after their visit (Table 1). There was no significant correlation between satisfaction of the animal presentation and engaging in the behavior; r (71) ¼ .008, P > .05. The zoo’s persuasive communication campaign had a bimodal impact on the frequency of the targeted behavior (Fig. 1). The first group (19%) commenced the behavior to varying frequency as a result of the zoo campaign and the second group (15%) shifted from engaging in the behavior a few times a week to daily. For the pledge group, the bimodal impact was larger with 29% of respondents commencing the behavior and 24% increasing the behavior to daily frequency. Of note are the 37% (n ¼ 23) of respondents who were already keeping their cat inside daily. DISCUSSION Wellington Zoo visitors returned home and implemented the conservation behavior communicated at the amphitheater presentations. Six weeks after a visit, 70% of visitors reported bringing cats inside at night with more than half attributing the behavior change to the message they heard at the Zoo. Furthermore, signing a pledge card strengthened the implementation of the behavior (100% of respondents) six weeks after a visit to the Zoo. My results support Wellington Zoo’s conservation education goals: a visit to the zoo empowers visitors to implement a conservation behavior at home. Carr and Cohen [2011] question a zoo’s ability to relay conservation messages because the zoo’s focus of fun and entrainment may hinder or conflict with educational experiences and impede the communication of serious conservation messages to visitors: “it may also be claimed that as leisure sites, at least in the eyes of the general public, zoos are inappropriate places for learning as visitors do not
TABLE 1. Descriptive statistics of the control and pledge group Pledge group
Recalled conservation message Satisfaction Relevancy Changed behavior Attributed change to zoo message Correlation between intention and behavior
Zoo Biology
Control group (n ¼ 51)
Signed pledge (n ¼ 17)
Did not sign pledge (n ¼ 5)
45 (88%) 6.51 þ/ .080 6.22 þ/ .118 29 (57%) 20 (54%) 0.254
17 (100%) 6.397 þ/ .069 6.235 þ/ .080 17 (100%) 9 (58%) 1.0
5 (83%) 6.541 þ/ .208 5.723 þ/ .369 5 (83%) 4 (80%) 0.122
Post Visit Conservation Behavior 5
Fig. 1. Percentage of increase in visitor behavior one month after a zoo visit. The arrows represent the percentage of visitors that increased bringing cats in at night from one frequency prior to their zoo visit to a greater frequency after their visit. The ovals represent the percentage of visitors who did not change the frequency of their behavior after a zoo visit.
come prepared to be educated but instead have an expectation to be entertained (p179).” My study investigated the link between visitor satisfaction of a specific zoo experience (amphitheater presentation) and enacting the advocated conservation behavior at home. I found no relationship between engaging in the targeted behavior at home and satisfaction with the amphitheater presentation (r ¼ .008). Thus, Carr and Cohen’s [2011] concern that enjoyment of the zoo experience (measured by satisfaction in my study) would inhibit visitors attending to and enacting the conservation behavior advocated was not supported in this study. On the contrary, zoo visitors may be a biased sample of the general population with a predisposition to receive and act upon advocated educational messages [Falk and Adelman, 2003]. Commitments were effective in increasing the targeted behavior and bridging the gap between intention and behavior: 100% of visitors who signed a pledge card engaged in the behavior compared to 57% in the control group. My results are consistent with the use of commitments in other sustainable behaviors such as recycling [Werner et al., 1995] but greater than other post-visit studies conducted in informal learning environments [10–57%; Hughes, 2013; 38%; Smith et al., 2008]. The higher success rate in this study may be attributed to the integration of the beliefs associated with bringing cats in at night into the content of the animal presentation, an aspect novel to my study, but best-practice based on persuasive communication campaigns [McKenzie-Mohr and Smith, 1999]. Almost half of respondents (46% in the control group and 42% in the pledge group) did not attribute their behavior change to the zoo message. Smith et al. [2008] and Dierking et al. [2004] found similar attribution rates and note that visitor behavior may be influenced by sources other than the zoo
campaign. While this may also be true of my study, the targeted behavior of keeping cats in at night for conservation purposes was relatively novel to most zoo visitors compared to the well-known behaviors in the studies of Smith et al. [2008] and Dierking et al. [2004]. Previous research at Wellington Zoo [MacDonald, 2011] found few visitors brought their cats in at night as a way to mitigate their impact on native species (8% of respondents). Instead, the majority of respondents (54%) brought cats inside for cat health and safety reasons. Furthermore, during the time of this study there were no public campaigns about keeping cats inside at night in the Wellington City region [MacDonald, 2011]. Thus the likelihood of visitors being influenced from other external campaigns or sources to keep their cats inside at night is low. Another possibility for not attributing the behavior to the zoo message may be naïve psychology in which individuals place a greater weight on internal reasons for their behavior rather than conforming to external messages and norms [Pronin, 2007]. People are biased in their self-analysis and often attribute any conformity or change in their own behavior to self-interest or internal reasoning rather than the influence of others and external sources [Croker et al., 2009]. For example, Nolan et al. [2008] found participants in an energy conservation campaign were most effected by the normative behavior of others, their neighbors, and not self-serving reasons (e.g., to save the environment, for future generations, save money) but attributed their behavior change to self-serving reasons. Thus participants were inaccurate in perceiving themselves and external influences of their behavior. Future research should investigate the role of naïve psychology on zoo persuasive campaigns and assess any long term impacts on the behavior and the effectiveness of persuasive communication campaigns. Zoo Biology
6 MacDonald The persuasive communication campaign had a bimodal effect on the frequency of behavior with respondents either commencing the behavior or increasingly bringing cats in at night to daily with the effect almost doubling for those who signed a pledge card. While initiating novel behaviors has been very successful in non-zoo behavior change campaigns [McKenzie-Mohr, 2000; McKenzie-Mohr et al., 2012], these results contrast with the one other study to date [Smith et al., 2008] that compared zoo visitors’ initiation of a novel behavior versus increasing the rate of a current behavior. Smith et al. [2008] found initiation of a new behavior was more difficult than increasing frequency of an existing behavior and attributed it to the need to understand the beliefs that are triggers and facilitators of the advocated behaviors. My study incorporated the beliefs associated with bringing cats in at night into the communication campaign and may explain the success of visitors initiating a new behavior. My results reinforce the need for zoos to implement theorybased persuasive communication campaigns to meet their mission of fostering visitor conservation behavior at home [Ballantyne et al., 2011].
difference between initiating a novel behavior and increasing the frequency of a pre-existing behavior, in contrast to Smith et al. [2008]. With the rise of social media and digital technologies, the effectiveness of different communication channels need to be evaluated. Signs and face-to-face interpretation are currently the two main communication channels in zoos [Weiler and Smith, 2009; MacDonald, 2011] but newer media channels (e.g., Facebook) have been successful in recent zoo behavior change campaigns [Pearson et al., 2014]. Future research needs to explore the interdependencies between message content, targeted audience, and communication channel. In short, zoos must increase their commitment, development, and evaluation of theoretically-based persuasive communication campaigns if they are to meet their educational claims and be leaders in the field of conservation.
CONCLUSION
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My results support Wellington Zoo’s educational aspirations: zoo visitors to an animal presentation engaged in the advocated behavior at home when the communication campaign was theoretically based and followed a persuasive framework [Smith et al., 2010a; Ballantyne and Packer, 2011; McKenzie-Mohr, 2011]. Zoos need to be more proactive in facilitating conservation behavior amongst their 700 million visitors [World Association for Zoos and Aquariums, 2013] and better utilize psychology and social marketing to understand the complex factors that influence behavior change and the detailed steps required to design and establish a successful persuasive communication campaign [Cannon et al., 1996; Kollmuss and Agyeman, 2002; Schultz, 2011; Pearson et al., 2014]. First, zoos need to select and advocate strong conservation messages, connecting visitors to animals is not enough and implying or assuming proenvironmental attitudes will result in pro-environmental behavior is a fallacy [Ballantyne and Packer, 2011; Schultz, 2011]. The selection of the targeted behavior must follow a prescriptive process [McKenzie-Mohr, 2011] to ensure the campaign is successful [e.g., Smith et al., 2011, 2012]. While there has been some progress in the decade since the MIRPS report [e.g., Clayton et al., 2013; Pearson et al., 2014] more theory based research is required to advance our knowledge of the effectiveness of zoo based behavior change campaigns. Due to the small sample size, a meta-analysis of zoo studies which compares different features that lead to future successful campaigns (e.g., advocating a novel behavior or a habit; initiating a new behavior or discontinuing a behavior; the effectiveness of different communication channels) is not possible, unlike the public health field [Snyder et al., 2004]. In my study, there was no significant
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the staff at Wellington Zoo who embraced and supported this research.
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