Supervisors: Pol Chrysochou & Panos Mitkidis
Discussants: Lina Jacobsen & Christian Elbæk

Abstract
Brand-led sustainability messaging can engage consumers - but it may backfire among ideologically conservative audiences. Analyzing over 39,000 brand posts on Instagram and Facebook, we find that conservative audiences engage less with brand-led sustainability content. However, prevention-focused language mitigates this effect, increasing engagement among conservative users. Following up with two pre-registered experiments (N = 1,770), we reveal that economic conservatism consistently predicts lower engagement and operates through heightened psychological reactance. In contrast, when conservatism is treated as a unidimensional construct, it does not consistently predict lower engagement. Moreover, prevention framing boosts engagement among socially conservative individuals in social (but not environmental) sustainability contexts. Our findings highlight how brands can tailor message framing to reduce ideologically-driven sustainability resistance and improve sustainability communication outcomes.

Keywords: political ideology, economic conservatism, social conservatism, regulatory focus, sustainability, social media engagement

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