The Season to Help : The Effect of Seasonal Mood and Gain Versus Loss Advertising Message Framing on Intention to Help Charity

There are various researchers who studied the relationship between seasons and feelings. However, only a few did shed light on how these two variables affect decision-making and physical behaviors especially prosocial behavior which emphasize on the benefits of other people and/or society as a whole. Due to a lack of studies on the topic, we investigated whether the combination of seasons and message framing could be useful in eliciting intention to help on an environmental issue. A 3x2 experiment examined the interactions between seasonal mood (summer, winter, controlled) and types of message framing (gain, loss) on future helping intention (volunteer, donation, petition signing). The findings suggest that in normal circumstances where seasonal mood were not applied, gain message framing was more effective in promoting higher intention to sign a petition than loss message framing. However, when thinking of winter, loss message framing has greater ability to do so than gain message framing. Moreover, seasons and mood are found to be associated with a higher positive mood in summer and a negative mood in winter. Lastly, limitations and implications are discussed.