Values Determine the (In)Effectiveness of Informational Interventions in Promoting Pro-Environmental Behavior

Informational interventions (e.g., awareness campaigns, carbon footprint calculators) are built on the assumption that informing the public about the environmental consequences of their actions should result in increased pro-environmental intentions and behavior. However, empirical support for this reasoning is mixed. In this paper, we argue that informational interventions may succeed in improving people’s knowledge about the negative environmental consequences of one’s actions, but this knowledge will not gain motivational force if people do not consider protecting the environment an important personal value. In an experiment, we measured individual differences in value priorities, and either presented participants a movie clip that portrayed the negative environmental consequences of using bottled water, or a control movie. As predicted, we found that the environmental movie improved recipients’ knowledge of the negative environmental impact of bottled water, but this knowledge only resulted in concomitant changes in intentions and acceptability of related policies among participants who strongly endorsed biospheric (i.e. environmental) values, while having no effect on those who care less about the environment. Interestingly, the results suggest that although informational interventions are perhaps not always successful in directly affecting less environmentally-conscious recipients, they could still have beneficial effects, because they make those who strongly care about the environment more inclined to act on their values.     

Functional CD8<Superscript>+</Superscript> T cells infiltrate into nonsmall cell lung carcinoma

Infiltration of CD3(+)CD8(+) cytotoxic T cells was analyzed by multiparameter confocal laser microscopy in a panel of 16 randomly selected stage I nonsmall cell lung carcinomas. T-cell infiltration was observed in the stroma (range 57-2,093 T cells/mm(2)) but also in the tumor epithelium (range 21-892 T cells/mm(2)) and showed wide variation between individual tumors. Interestingly, a significantly higher percentage of CD3(+)CD8(+) T cells was detected in the tumor epithelium compared to the stroma illustrating that cytotoxic T cells may preferentially migrate into tumor epithelium. Aberrant HLA class I antigen expression was observed in 69% of the nonsmall-cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) tumors. One tumor of a squamous cell lung carcinoma patient with the highest number of tumor infiltrating CD3(+) and CD3(+)CD8(+) cells was studied in detail and the majority (90%) of these cells were shown to be functionally activated granzyme B-positive cytotoxic T cells. DNA oligotyping of a lung carcinoma cell line established from this tumor revealed loss of one HLA haplotype corresponding with a translocation involving chromosome 6, as observed by COBRA-FISH. HLA class I-restricted tumor specific T cells could be isolated from PBMC. One further characterized cytotoxic CD8(+) T cell clone, that released TNF-alpha, IFN-gamma, and granzyme B upon co-incubation with the autologous tumor cells, was shown to be restricted by the remaining HLA-A11 allele, which was also shown to be expressed in the tumor tissue. Our data indicate that, despite HLA-haplotype loss a vigorous antitumor immune response mediated by CD8(+ )T-cells can be present in NSCLC offering possibilities for specific immunotherapy.