Optimistic vs. pessimistic endings in climate change appeals

Abstract

The use of emotion in climate change appeals is a hotly debated topic. Warning about the perils of imminent mass extinction, climate change communicators are often accused of being unnecessarily 'doomsday' in their attempts to foster a sense of urgency and action among the public. Pessimistic messaging, the thinking goes, undermines engagement efforts, straining credulity and fostering a sense of helplessness, rather than concern. Widespread calls for more optimistic climate change messaging punctuate public discourse. This research puts these claims to the test, investigating how affective endings (optimistic vs. pessimistic vs. fatalistic) of climate change appeals impact individual risk perception and outcome efficacy (i.e., the sense that one's behavior matters). The findings of three online experiments presented in this paper suggest that climate change appeals with pessimistic affective endings increase risk perception (Studies 1 and 2) and outcome efficacy (Study 3), which is the result of heightened emotional arousal (Studies 1-3). Moreover, the results indicate that the mediating effect of emotional arousal is more prevalent among political moderates and conservatives, as well as those who hold either individualistic or hierarchical world views. Given that these audiences generally exhibit lower risk perception and outcome efficacy in relation to climate change, the results suggest that climate change appeals with pessimistic endings could trigger higher engagement with the issue than optimistic endings. These findings are interpreted in light of recent research findings, which suggest that differences in threat-reactivity and emotional arousal may be attributable to brain functions/anatomy mappable to basic motivations for safety and survival. Implications for scholars and practitioners are discussed.

Cultural worldviews consistently explain bundles of ecosystem service prioritisation across rural Germany

“…For example, individualist farmers who are competition focused and regard nature as durable will respond to different communications to egalitarians who regard nature as sensitive. This potential application of the cultural theory of risk in communication strategies is already receiving attention in climate change research (McNeeley & Lazrus, 2014;Morris et al, 2020;Price et al, 2014).…”

“…While this grid-group typology has not yet been applied within ES research, it has been used to successfully explain individual variation in the perception of climate change and its management (e.g. McNeeley & Lazrus, 2014;Morris et al, 2020). We also hypothesise that these cultural worldviews and the associated perceptions of nature and environmental risks are linked to sociocultural (region, stakeholder group, political party preference) and sociodemographic factors (e.g.…”

Risk? Crisis? Emergency? Implications of the new climate emergency framing for governance and policy

“…In fact, there is ongoing debate about the effectiveness of positive versus negative issue framing of climate change on engaging people to care about the issue and their own perceived efficacy to affect outcomes (Hornsey & Fielding, 2020). Recent evidence suggests that increasing people's perception of threat from negative messaging can be more effective than positive messaging (Hornsey et al, 2020; Morris et al, 2020), however the effectiveness of messages also depends on other factors, such as the political and social identity of the audience, and whether they are perceive the message as from their ingroup or outgroup (Fielding et al, 2020). Indeed, climate emergency framing to a large extent has been embraced by progressive sides of politics more than conservative, so emergency framing may be more effective at mobilizing progressives than engaging conservatives, who may require other approaches.…”

Kiss the ground (and make a wish): soil science and hollywood

“…From a film perspective, this is simply a long-standing Hollywood theatrical device. But there are much deeper psychological issues to consider in terms of balancing messaging with data and probability (Morris et al 2020). This in many ways explains the appeal of Hollywood stories about soil, food, and climate.…”

“…see Mooney 2011;Kahan 2012). While social science is unveiling how we think and perceive information (Morris et al 2020), it is also fair to say that it has only provided dim suggestions of steps toward improving human ability to accept the truth. The embrace of simple happy endings, on issues as complex as soil and climate, is in effect another type of denial of fact.…”