Abstract
Climate change has become a major cause of concern to countries across the world. Pakistan is among the list of countries most impacted from climate change, with little to no public awareness about environmental conservation. Accordingly, the study is the first of its kind to investigate, using is a mixed (within and between subject) classic experimental design, the differential impact, if any, of three climate change interventions, about a) energy conservation, and b) air pollution prevention, using 1) a TikTok video, 2) a dialogue, and 3) the video followed by dialogue among young individuals from low-income communities in Pakistan. Further, differences for genders moderating impact over the treatments were investigated. A thematic analysis of the treatments’ dialogue components was done afterwards. The study draws upon individual behavior change models of KAP, TPB/TRA, and HBM, and dialogue from Social Change Theory. These theoretical foundations helped to explore the differential effect of the three treatments on participants’ environmental knowledge, environmental attitudes, environmental behavioral intentions, and environmental dialogue intention. Findings from the study suggested video as the most powerful of the three treatments, as it affected both knowledge and attitude in young individuals. Dialogue did better than other treatments in impacting environmental attitudes. However, the video followed by dialogue did not perform significantly better than the other treatments in terms of impacting young individuals’ environmental perceptions. Further, gender-wise results indicated that the video affected males’ knowledge and attitudes but not that of females, whereas dialogue affected females’ knowledge. Thematic analysis revealed the significance of informational cues on participants’ interpretation of the environmental messages. Findings provide theoretical and practical contributions for future studies in this field.