This is a summary from You want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip, written by Claudia R Schneider

Many social dilemmas are overcome only through collective action, but these changes often come at a personal cost. Which emotional route is the most promising – to make people feel bad about their shortcomings, or to encourage them to have a positive self-image because they’ve done ‘the right thing’?

In a study that my colleagues and I conducted at Columbia University in New York, we set out to test the consequences of positive versus negative self-directed emotions. Participants were prompted to think about either how guilty they felt about non-environmentally friendly behavior or how proud they might be for acting to preserve the environment.

Participants in the pride group expressed higher intentions to engage in green behaviors compared with those in the guilt group.

This potential advantage – of appealing to positive emotions over negative ones – links up with what we know about human self-perception.

Having a positive self-image about who we are and what we do is a fundamental human need. When we’re balanced and on good terms with ourselves, we are more energetic and have greater cognitive and emotional resources.

Research on self-affirmation supports this picture. In one study, we prompted one set of participants to engage in a self-affirming exercise.

This involved reflecting on the values and behaviors that were important to them, and that they appreciated in themselves. Another group completed an unrelated exercise, describing the layout of the store at which they shop most frequently.

Both groups were entered into a raffle to win a $10 bonus, and were given the option to either keep the money for themselves or to donate all or a portion to a selection of charities with varying missions and beneficiaries.

The ‘affirmation’ group reported feeling more positively about themselves and more at peace with themselves – and what’s more, these positive self-directed emotions translated into increased levels of charitable giving compared with those participants who had engaged in the unrelated exercise.

My colleagues and I were curious about whether the effects of a positive self-image would extend to more challenging contexts, such as when the beneficiaries of prosociality were members of a marginalized group. In a field study in Nigeria, we investigated how the public felt about enhanced social support for ex-prisoners.

For the study, members of the general public in Nigeria were asked to engage in the self-affirming exercise prior to answering a range of survey questions.

The self-affirmed participants showed more prosocial intentions and decreased discriminatory tendencies, compared with participants in the control group.

Follow-up research in the United States replicated these results. Obtaining these findings in two studies and two different countries suggests that these effects can be generalized.

Instead of focusing on ‘doom and gloom’ messaging that zooms in on people’s shortcomings and risks alienating them, policymakers and strategists might find that positive messaging, speaking to people’s positive sense of self, might be a more powerful lever of behavioral change.