Portraying the Perils to Polar Bears: The Role of Empathic and Objective Perspective-taking Toward Animals in Climate Change Communication

Swim, Janet K.; Bloodhart, Brittany

doi:10.1080/17524032.2014.987304

Cited by 102 publications

(92 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…They found greater denial of climate change among participants with stronger just‐world beliefs who had been presented with dire messages about climate change, whereas this same pattern did not emerge on more positively framed messages. Research has also shown that dire messages of harm to animals from climate change, particularly polar bears, can be made more effective if viewers take the perspective of the animals harmed by climate change (Swim & Bloodhart, in press).…”

Section: Changing Climate Change Attitudes Beliefs and Behaviourmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing a social psychology of climate change

Fielding

Hornsey

Swim

2014

Euro J Social Psych

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and is mirrored by the lack of progress made by salient political summits (Rogelj et al., 2010). Perhaps as a response to this, scholarly journals and articles that are focused on climate change are growing. Natural scientists tell us that we know what needs to be done to avert dangerous climate change (IPCC, 2014), and economists tell us that delaying action in the short term will lead to much greater costs in the long term (Stern, 2007). Understanding public responses to climate change and developing solutions to catalyse action is a critical challenge for the social sciences, and we propose that the development and elaboration of a social psychology of climate change would be a cornerstone of such an approach.We do not make the claim that social psychology has all the answers but rather that the theories, models and research methods of social psychology can provide a powerful arsenal to complement the approaches of other disciplines. Researchers have already begun to apply social psychological theory and methods to the issue of climate change, and we highlight in the following sections examples of the insights that have flowed from this. We cannot assume, though, that our theories and findings will automatically generalise to the climate change context. As Moser (2010) has noted, there are unique dimensions to climate change that make it distinct from other environmental, risk and health issues: The causes of climate change are invisible to humans, the impacts are distal and it is complex and riddled with uncertainties. Modern urban humans are to some extent insulated from their physical environment, and the lags between the climate and social systems make it difficult for people to understand their role in influencing climate.These factors suggest the importance of developing a social psychology of climate change, empirically testing, integrating and refining existing theories and models to develop new frameworks. The notion that psychology can play a role in understanding and addressing climate change is not a new one. The American Psychological Association's Task Force on the interface between psychology and global climate change comprehensively detailed the ways in which psychological research can help to understand people's perceptions of the risks of climate change, the contribution of human behaviour to climate change, the psychosocial impacts of climate change, the ways in which people can adapt and cope with climate change and the psychological barriers that could limit climate change action (Swim et al., 2009.It is also not a new idea that social psychology can play an important role in understanding and addressing environmental problems and solutions (Clayton & Brook, 2005). Social psychology, specifically, has a long tradition of theory and research that is relevant to addressing key climate change questions. Attitudes, social cognition, persuasion and attitude change, social influence, and intragroup and intergroup behaviour, for instance, are fundamental foci for social psychology and have direc...

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Section: Changing Climate Change Attitudes Beliefs and Behaviourmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing a social psychology of climate change

Fielding

Hornsey

Swim

2014

Euro J Social Psych

Self Cite

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“…The different message frames, along with all survey measures, were piloted with a convenience sample of 17 people consisting primarily of family and friends of the authors and Master of Sustainability Science students to ensure they captured the desired construct and to refine the language. To assess the degree to which individuals were able to take the perspective assigned with the message frames, study participants were asked on a 5-point Likert scale the extent to which they 1) remained objective about the information in the article and 2) imagined themselves in the situation presented in the article (Swim and Bloodhart 2015).…”

Section: Experimental Manipulation (Message Frames)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Participants indicated their self-identification as an environmentalist using a 5-point Likert agreement scale (strongly disagree, somewhat disagree, neither agree nor disagree, somewhat agree and strongly agree; Swim and Bloodhart 2015). The shortened version of the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) scale comprising of six items was used as a measure of environmental worldviews as previous research highlighted participants' difficulty with interpreting nine of the 15 original NEP items (Whitmarsh 2011).…”

Section: Survey Measures Environmental Values and Climate Beliefsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The selection of these international NGOs was based on their varying approaches towards climate change activism. To identify the level of participant support, a check-all-that-apply option was given for the following statements for all three organizations: I would like to receive more information about this organization; I would like to join this organization; and I would like to donate money to this organization (Swim and Bloodhart 2015). To further gauge support, participants were given four options of what they would want to be done with $100 if given to them by the researcher: keep the $100; return the $100 back to the researcher; donate the $100 to the environmental organizations; or donate some to the environmental organizations and keep the rest (amount then specified by participant) (Swim and Bloodhart 2015).…”

Section: Survey Measures Environmental Values and Climate Beliefsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Psychological and experiential factors affecting climate change perception: learnings from a transnational empirical study and implications for framing climate-related flood events

Munoz-Carrier

Thomsen

Pickering

2020

Environ. Res. Commun.

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Understanding the underlying values, beliefs and emotions that influence the public's perceptions and opinions on climate change (CC) is increasingly important, as CC is a complex and politicized phenomenon. Additionally, optimizing messaging for communicating CC and encouraging greater mitigation behavior can yield significant benefits to global stakeholders. Here we evaluated the effectiveness of informative, persuasive and empathic message frames about a major climate-related local flooding event through online surveys administered to 370 adults in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Canada and 360 adults in Queensland, Australia. Measures of trust in climate communicators and climate science, concern over CC effects, and belief that most recent floods are due to CC were assessed before and after message exposure, along with related values, beliefs and emotions. Willingness to support pro-environmental groups was assessed as a proxy measure of behavioural intent. Cumulative odds ordinal regression and multinomial regression were used to predict group membership (no support, passive support, active support). Political affiliation, trust and belief in CC, belief in anthropogenic CC, pro-environmental values, and, in some regressions, previous flood exposure, were significant predictors of activism support. Respondents who received the empathic message frame and had low to medium pro-environmental values were more likely to believe the link between flooding and CC compared to those who received the informative message frame. These results, including the finding that some elicited emotions predicted behavioral intent, provide insight into how to construct climate information for groups with varying beliefs, values and experiences, to reduce climate skepticism and encourage pro-environmental behavior.

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“…Since images that evoke fear also create emotional distance and feelings of disempowerment (O'Neill & Nicholson-Cole, 2009), they might be "counter-productive for 'meaningful engagement'" (Manzo, 2010a, p. 198). However, a study by Swim and Bloodhart (2015) suggests that visual engagement with polar bears based on empathy may help create climate change awareness. Many of these studies try to assess audiences' uptake of these images, testing the icon's efficacy in fostering public engagement with climate change.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bearing Witness? Polar Bears as Icons for Climate Change Communication inNational Geographic

Born

2018

Environmental Communication

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This article investigates how polar bears were established as icons of climate change in the popular science magazine National Geographic. In a multistep process, anthropomorphized depictions first established polar bears as subjects of identification. Then, polar bears were visually connected to the endangered Arctic. Finally, they emerged as ambassadors of a threatened ecosystem and icons of climate change. I highlight the wider political contexts of this process of iconization and the semiotic and cultural resources on which it draws, showing what kind of climate change communication the polar bear icon enables or inhibits. The icon lends itself to being deployed in visual communication strategies creating personal concern and public awareness for climate change. At the same time, the icon fosters an individualized, emotionalized, and localized account of climate change but does not make its wider causes visible. ARTICLE HISTORY

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Portraying the Perils to Polar Bears: The Role of Empathic and Objective Perspective-taking Toward Animals in Climate Change Communication

Cited by 102 publications

References 38 publications

Developing a social psychology of climate change

Developing a social psychology of climate change

Psychological and experiential factors affecting climate change perception: learnings from a transnational empirical study and implications for framing climate-related flood events

Bearing Witness? Polar Bears as Icons for Climate Change Communication inNational Geographic

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