Attitude Inoculation occurs when you consider the argument against your attitude, and as a result, you become more immune to attempts to future attitude change. This occurs by showing the person small doses of argument contrary to their position. As a result, it is important that the information to encourage others to engage in sustainable behaviour should be credible and justifiable, to prevent resistance from future information regarding sustainable behaviour.

Reactance Theory is what happens when persuasion backfires. Promoting sustainable behaviour should be done in a calibrated manner such that people do not feel that their freedom to perform a certain behaviour is threatened. This points to ecological guilt. Arousing an excessive amount of ecological guilt to promote sustainable behaviour may lead to an arousal of an unpleasant state within the person.  Administering strong prohibition (i.e ecological guilt) in the advertisement will not be an effective approach. To reduce the unpleasant state of arousal, the person may choose to engage in the prohibited behaviour instead, backfiring the persuasion attempt. Therefore, it is important that the person does not feel that they feel limited or constricted in their choice to engage in a certain behaviour.

 

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