Signs of compliance: Message framing influences outdoor recreationists' responses to conservation requests

Natural landscapes shared by people and wildlife often rely on signage to guide people towards behaviours that protect nature, where the justification and framing of these requests may influence how people interpret and respond to them.

We conducted a factorial vignette experiment with 600 frequent outdoor recreationists living in Scotland, stratified by age, gender and dog ownership, to test the influence of specific sign features on recreationists' intentions to follow three behavioural requests: keeping dogs on leads, staying on designated trails and avoiding sensitive areas, whilst measuring their perceptions of whether they found requests reasonable. We systematically varied requests by highlighting what the majority of other recreationists do (descriptive norms; ‘nine out of ten people do…’) or requesting the appropriate behaviour outright (injunctive norms; ‘please do…’), and by justifying requests for either single‐species conservation, general biodiversity conservation or for self and pet safety.

Overall, we found high intentions of recreationists to follow the three behavioural requests, which varied significantly across our experimental conditions and with participant age.

The effectiveness of injunctive versus descriptive norms depended on request type: injunctive framing nearly doubled the odds of higher perceived reasonableness and compliance intentions for a proscriptive request to avoid an area, but had no significant effect on prescriptively worded requests to keep dogs on leads or stay on marked paths.

Species‐specific requests outperformed biodiversity and self‐interest requests, but their influence varied by age group. Request justification did not significantly affect perceptions or behavioural intentions among adults aged 18–34. However, requests justified for the conservation of a declining locally iconic umbrella species (Western Capercaillie, Tetrao urogallus ) increased perceived reasonableness and intentions of compliance among older adults, suggesting that conservation messages may be most effective when they connect with existing human–nature relationships.

Our findings show that the way behavioural requests are framed and justified on signs influences the way people relate to conservation guidance in shared landscapes. Overall, messages that emphasise locally meaningful species and communicate clear behavioural expectations are more likely to improve overall voluntary cooperation to support sustainable interactions between outdoor recreationists and wildlife.