Brügger, A, Morton, TA and Rauto Dessai, S (2016) "Proximising" Climate Change Reconsidered: A Construal Level Theory Perspective. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 46. pp. 125-142. ISSN 0272-4944
Abstract
Reducing the psychological distance of climate change has repeatedly been proposed as one strategy to increase individuals’ motivation to respond to climate change. From the perspective of construal level theory, decreasing psychological distance should not itself influence people’s willingness to act but change the processes that underlie individual decision-making. We conducted two experiments in which we manipulated the psychological distance of climate change. We found that participants with a distant focus relied more on scepticism to represent risks and make decisions about supporting climate change, whereas participants with a proximal perspective relied more on fear when making such judgements. However, the predicted Fear x Distance interaction was only found when self-reported fear rather than experimentally manipulated fear was used as a moderator. Our results suggest that simply proximising won’t increase engagement and call for a more differentiated perspective on the effects of psychological distance in the context of climate change.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2016, Elsevier. This is an author produced version of a paper published in Journal of Environmental Psychology. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | climate change; psychological distance; construal level theory; risk perception; mitigation; adaptation |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EU - European Union 284369 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 21 Apr 2016 11:21 |
Last Modified: | 11 Jan 2023 11:51 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2016.04.004 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.jenvp.2016.04.004 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:98754 |