Climate Change From a Distance: An Analysis of Construal Level and Psychological Distance From Climate Change

Abstract

The public perception of climate change as abstract and distant may undermine climate action. According to construal level theory, whether a phenomenon is perceived as psychologically distant or close is associated with whether it is construed as abstract or concrete, respectively. Previous work has established a link between psychological distance and climate action, but the associated role of construal level has yet to be explored in depth. In two representative surveys of Australians ( N = 217 and N = 216), and one experiment ( N = 319), we tested whether construal level and psychological distance from climate change predicted pro-environmental intentions and policy support, and whether manipulating distance and construal increased pro-environmental behaviors such as donations. Results showed that psychological closeness to climate change predicted more engagement in pro-environmental behaviors, while construal level produced inconsistent results, and manipulations of both variables failed to produce increases in pro-environmental behaviors. In contrast with the central tenet of construal level theory, construal level was unrelated to psychological distance in all three studies. Our findings suggest that the hypothesized relationship between construal level and psychological distance may not hold in the context of climate change, and that it may be difficult to change pro-environmental behavior by manipulating these variables.

The Psychological Distance and Climate Change: A Systematic Review on the Mitigation and Adaptation Behaviors

“…This is especially relevant because the impacts of climate change may differ between different geographical territories and may consequently be perceived differently. The description of results for each study is divided into three paragraphs based on environmental behavior: two studies explored the role of psychological distance in the commitment to adaptation behavior toward climate change (Niles et al, 2015;Singh et al, 2017); 10 studies focused on engagement in mitigation with reference to some dimensions of psychological distance and climate change (Spence et al, 2012;Busse and Menzel, 2014;Milfont et al, 2014;Carmi and Kimhi, 2015;Jones et al, 2017;Soliman et al, 2018;Chen et al, 2019;Griffioen et al, 2019;Kim and Ahn, 2019;Kyselá et al, 2019); seven studies analyzed the link between psychological distance and each dimension with mitigation and adaptation behaviors applied to climate change (Haden et al, 2012;Brügger et al, 2015aBrügger et al, , 2016Rickard et al, 2016;Schuldt et al, 2018;de Guttry et al, 2019;Wang et al, 2019).…”

“…The contrasting levels of the spatial (proximal) and temporal (distal) dimensions of distance psychology have promoted greater commitment to policy support to engage in mitigation and adaptation behaviors. Wang et al (2019) conducted three studies with Australian participants. Through two surveys (study 1 and 2); the authors investigated whether the construal level (abstract vs. concrete) and the psychological distance (proximal vs. distal) from climate change, predicted pro-environmental and resilient intentions (individual vs. community) and policy support (individual vs. community).…”

The European Media Portrayal of Climate Change: Implications for the Social Mobilization towards Climate Action

“…On the other hand, contrary to the media communication praxis, an effective form of communicating climate change would be by taking the problem here and now [30], by facilitating the psychological closeness to environmental issues on lay audiences. As recently found by Wang et al (2019) [29], psychological closeness to climate change is strongly related with more engagement to environmental issues and thus with the individuals' adoption of pro-environmental behaviors. Taking this evidence into account, framing climate change in ways that feel relevant and psychologically close to the audiences would enhance the development of concrete emotions in the public (e.g., concern, guilt), which have been proven to be related to greater engagement with climate change, adoption of mitigation practices, and environmental policy support [29,31,32].…”

“…These forms of reporting environmental issues are known to increase the individuals' psychological distance from climate change [26]; that is, the distance at which climate change consequences are perceived to occur, in its four dimensions [27]: spatial (likely to occur in far distant countries), temporal (likely to occur in a distant future), social (likely to occur to dissimilar others), and uncertainty (unlikely to occur in the news' country of origin). As it is well-established in the literature [28,29], the psychological distance represents a barrier of utmost importance to public engagement with climate change, by undermining the individuals' adoption of pro-environmental behaviors and actions to both mitigate and adapt to the actual climate crisis [29]. On the other hand, contrary to the media communication praxis, an effective form of communicating climate change would be by taking the problem here and now [30], by facilitating the psychological closeness to environmental issues on lay audiences.…”

Climate change on YouTube: A potential platform for youth learning

“…Many researchers have proposed that lack of action and engagement may also be due to people's perception of climate change as distant in time and space. 10 Research suggests that communicating the observable effects of climate on specific places could increase public engagement and action in climate change efforts. 11,12 Social media websites have gained global popularity as important information sources for topics such as science and medicine.…”