Raising environmental awareness with augmented reality

Individuals are often poorly informed about the environmental consequences of their actions. Informational campaigns are a widely used policy tool to address imperfect information. However, previous research suggests that simply providing information may be ineffective and fail to engage individuals. We investigate whether augmented reality (AR) can reduce psychological distance and promote pro-environmental behavior. In two incentivized experiments (laboratory and contextualized), we evaluate the effect of AR visualizations of marine plastic-pollution consequences on participants’ psychological distance and donations to pro-environmental organizations. These measures are complemented by self-reported environmental concern, pro-environmental engagement, intention to act, and prior experience with AR technology. Our results show no significant impact of AR visualizations on psychological distance or donation levels in either the AR-Lab or AR-Context settings. Consistent with these behavioral findings, we observe no significant differences across experimental conditions in self-reported measures. Interestingly, we document a general optimism regarding the effectiveness of immersive technologies as policy tools, highlighting a potential misalignment between public expectations and the actual effectiveness of these technologies.