Exploring the role of incidental emotions in support for climate change policy

Abstract

What role, if any, do incidental emotions play in people's beliefs about climate change and support for climate mitigation policies? This question has received surprisingly little attention, despite a growing recognition that reactions to climate change information are shaped by various contextual factors beyond the information itself. Drawing on recent perspectives in psychology and communication, we conducted an experiment (N=719) in which participants were randomly assigned to one of two emotion-induction treatments (guilt or anger) or to a no-emotion (neutral) control condition immediately before reading a news story about negative climate impacts and reporting on related policy preferences (e.g., support for taxing carbon polluters). Results revealed a number of significant effects, some of which emerged for the sample overall (e.g., guilt increased support for particular climate mitigation policies) and some that depended on personal and message factors suggested by prior research (e.g., political affiliation and social distance). Overall, these findings suggest that emotions may play an important role in guiding how the public processes and reacts to information about climate change.

Is There Any Hope? How Climate Change News Imagery and Text Influence Audience Emotions and Support for Climate Mitigation Policies

“…For example, studies have found that fear, as well as the positive emotion of compassion, can encourage opinion moderation among conservatives and break through partisan divides on climate change. Anger, on the other hand, tends to reinforce existing opinions . Following from this prior research, we hypothesize an interaction between emotions and ideology in predicting policy support ( Hypothesis 7 ).…”

“…In the specific context of climate change, emotions play an important role in shaping risk perceptions and policy support . Negative emotions, in particular, may help stimulate deeper information processing and thus make people more attentive to risks and to the policies that can be used to address them .…”

“…Negative emotions, in particular, may help stimulate deeper information processing and thus make people more attentive to risks and to the policies that can be used to address them . Fear and anger are related to greater support for policies designed to mitigate climate change . Among positive emotions, hope is strongly associated with support for climate mitigation policies .…”

Emotions predict policy support: Why it matters how people feel about climate change

“…The experience of negative affect relates to self-reported pro-environmental behaviours (Leviston & Walker 2012), and climate change policy support (Leiserowitz 2006;Smith & Leiserowitz 2014). Even the incidental occurrence of emotions -emotions triggered by events unrelated to climate change -can influence mitigation policy preferences (Lu & Schuldt 2015).…”

The influence of anticipated pride and guilt on pro-environmental decision making

“…This is particularly true of guilt, which is assumed by many environmentalists to be a powerful motivator of reparative [ 1 , 13 , 14 ] and preventative action [ 15 , 16 ]. Although guilt-oriented approaches to encouraging pro-environmental behavior can be successful [ 15 , 16 , 14 ], it is important to note that they also run the risk of alienating people and ultimately inhibiting sustainability [ 17 – 19 ]. A smaller number of campaigns have attempted to link environmental conservation with positive emotions (e.g., www.rare.org ).…”