Datasets for the study "Beyond the barrier of the eco-warrior: how schema-incongruent Instagram portrayals shift young adults' green people schema and group identity"

As these negative traits have become part of young adults’ existing cognitive schema of eco-friendly people (i.e., green people schema), they hesitate to identify with this group. Drawing on schema theory, this study investigates if media portrayals of eco-friendly people that challenge this narrow schema (i.e., schema-incongruent portrayals) improve young adults’ green people schema, and in turn, their eco-friendly group identity.

In an online scenario-based experiment (<i>N</i>=174) using a one-factor mixed factorial design, participants saw Instagram portrayals of eco-friendly people that either confirmed or challenged the existing schema of highly devoted eco-warriors, representing the schema-congruent and schema-incongruent condition respectively. Results show that young adults’ green people schema only improved from pre-exposure to post-exposure in the schema-incongruent condition.

More specifically, young adults attributed fewer negative traits to eco-friendly people after seeing schema-incongruent (vs. schema-congruent) Instagram portrayals. This, in turn, related to stronger group identification. When young adults’ environmental self-identity was taken into account, the indirect effect of schema-incongruent portrayals on group identification through the green people schema was no longer significant, hinting that the effectiveness of schema-incongruent portrayals may depend on how eco-friendly individuals perceive themselves.</p>