Relationship between Object Sentimentality and Hypothetical Distance to Climate Change

Abstract

Nearly half of all US residents state they are now more convinced about the existence and science of climate change. Nevertheless, many refuse to support climate policy and adopt environmentally friendly behaviors. Research on environmental behavior has found that as the perceived psychological distance of climate change increases, public concern and willingness to act decrease. With a focus on the importance of communication strategies in reducing the perceived psychological distance of climate change, participants (N=650) were randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups: Control, Narrative, Community Risk, and Combined. The degree to which each treatment reduced psychological distance, increased concern for climate change, and motivated willingness to engage in environmentally friendly behaviors were measured. Cronbach’s alpha, Kruskal-Wallis test, Spearman’s rank-order correlations, and Dunn’s pairwise test are used for the data analysis. The results showed that exclusively reducing the hypothetical distance can increase concern for climate and motivate action. Treatments given to the combined and community risk groups work most effectively to reduce the hypothetical distance and increase the concern for climate change. Participants in all treatment groups were more willing to engage in environmentally friendly behavior than were those in the control group. Surprisingly, the narrative treatment showed the greatest willingness to engage in environmentally friendly behaviors. The results suggest that emotions evoked via climate narratives are more effective and likely to incite proenvironmental behavior. However, climate narratives may not work alone to reduce hypothetical distance or increase the concern for climate change. Instead, we suggest that emotional narratives work best when used with a simplified fact-based narrative such as the community risk treatment.