Responsibility: Is it on me or on us?

Abstract

Abstract Public campaigns often urge citizens to take responsibility for societal issues, but little is known about how such appeals become personally meaningful and motivate genuine commitment. Guided by Self-Determination Theory, this study examines whether conceiving public campaigns as one’s individual responsibility versus people’s collective responsibility influences the internalization of responsibility. It further tests whether this effect operates through the satisfaction of the basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. In total, 125 participants were presented with real-world campaign texts and images that emphasized either individual or collective responsibility. Results showed that there was no meaningful difference in reported feelings of responsibility between the individual and collective appeals. However, the type of appeal did shape need satisfaction as expected, an appeal to individual responsibility increased perceived autonomy and competence, while an appeal to collective responsibility increased perceived relatedness. Of the three needs, only competence predicted internalized responsibility, suggesting that fostering a sense of capability may be key to promoting genuine responsibility in the societal context. To address the limitation of relying on self‑reports and to reflect campaigns’ purpose of encourage behavior, future research should include behavioral outcomes to determine whether internalized responsibility translates into actual behavior. To determine whether either appeal increases internalized responsibility above the level evoked by a neutral or general campaign, future studies should add two conditions: a neutral issue-only message and a mixed message combining individual and collective responsibility as commonly seen in public campaigns.