Determining individuals’ response to New Zealand biosecurity

The effectiveness of biosecurity measures at national borders is influenced by the behaviour of individuals. One influence on the behaviour of individuals is level of involvement. Involvement is the importance or relevance of an object or situation to an individual. Involvement helps regulate the way in which people receive and process information and thus influences the extent of information searching for decision making, information processing and persuasion. A second area of influence on individuals is the way in which information is framed. Framing influences the persuasiveness of communications. In this study the concept of involvement was used to investigate the response of individuals to New Zealand biosecurity requirements and the response of individuals to differently framed biosecurity information. A range of people associated with the agricultural and food processing sectors were surveyed using a five item scale of involvement to measure their level of involvement in biosecurity. The results indicated that most respondents had medium to high levels of involvement. This implies that respondents were motivated to attend to and process information on biosecurity measures. However, not all respondents reported taking note of biosecurity information implying that involvement with biosecurity prompts some initial information processing which may or may not continue over time. Respondents were also asked to rate four postcards, each designed with a different message strategy. Individuals with high involvement indicated that the postcard with the negatively framed emotion/entertainment message strategy was most persuasive. The results indicate that specifically targeting information to individuals based on their level of involvement in biosecurity may increase compliance with biosecurity measures