Injunctive norms, age, and species-specific framing increase outdoor recreationists’ intentions to follow conservation requests made on signs

1. Natural landscapes shared by people and wildlife often rely on signage to guide people toward behaviours that protect nature, where the justification and framing of these requests may influence how people interpret and respond to them. 2. We conducted a factorial vignette experiment with 600 frequent outdoor recreationists living in Scotland stratified by age, gender and dog ownership to test the influence of specific sign features on recreationists’ intentions to follow three behavioural requests: keeping dogs on leads, staying on designated trails and avoiding sensitive areas, whilst measuring their perceptions of whether they found requests reasonable. We systematically varied requests by highlighting what the majority of other recreationists do (descriptive norms; “nine out of ten people do…”) or requesting the appropriate behaviour outright (injunctive norms; “please do…”), and by justifying requests for either single-species conservation, general biodiversity conservation, or for self and pet safety. 3. Overall, we found high intentions of recreationists to follow the three behavioural requests, which varied significantly across our experimental conditions and with participant age. 4. Injunctive norms outperformed descriptive norms. Requests using descriptive norms were seen as less reasonable and had lower intentions of being followed than those directly requesting the behaviour. 5. Species-specific requests outperformed biodiversity and self-interest requests, but their success varied by age group. Requests justified for the conservation of a locally iconic umbrella species (Western Capercaillie, Tetrao urogallus ) were perceived as more reasonable and had higher intentions of being followed in older adults, whilst request justification did not significantly affect the perceptions or behavioural intentions of adults aged 18-34. 6. Our findings show that the way behavioural requests are framed and justified on signs matters for encouraging voluntary pro-environmental behaviour in shared landscapes. Messages that emphasise locally meaningful species and communicate clear behavioural expectations are more likely to improve overall voluntary cooperation and support more sustainable interactions between outdoor recreationists and wildlife.