Local is not always better: the impact of climate information on values, behavior and policy support

Abstract

In the current research, we experimentally examined the effect of providing local or global information about the impacts of climate change on individuals' perceived importance of climate change and on their willingness to take action to address it, including policy support. We examined these relationships in the context of individuals' general value orientations. Our findings, from 99 US residents, suggest that different kinds of climate information (local, global, or none) interact with values vis-à-vis our dependent variables. Specifically, while self-transcendent values predict perceived importance and pro-environmental behavior across all three information conditions, the effect on policy support is less clear. Furthermore, we detected a Breactance effect^where individuals with self-enhancing values who read local information thought that climate change was less important and were less willing to engage in pro-environmental behavior and support policy than self-enhancing individuals in the other information conditions. These results suggest that policy makers and public communicators may want to be cognizant of their audience's general value orientation. Local information may not only be ineffective but may also prove counterproductive with individuals whose value orientations are more self-enhancing than self-transcendent.

Collective climate action and networked climate governance

“…For example, proximal information may act as a deterrent to individuals who value wider communities and the environment. Furthermore, Schoenefeld and McCauley show that empirical evidence does not support a straightforward, self‐interest‐based theorization of this issue. In fact, people with more self‐interested value orientations who received local climate information were found to disengage from climate change action and policy support, producing a ‘reactance effect.’ Thus, simply highlighting the local effects of climate change is unlikely to unequivocally stimulate action.…”

“…Values, or ‘enduring belief[s] that a specific mode of conduct or end‐state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end‐state of existence,’ correlate strongly and consistently with pro‐environmental and pro‐climate behavior. As Corner et al emphasize in their detailed review, individuals with ‘self‐transcendent’ value orientations (such as caring about wider communities, or the environment) engage more in pro‐environmental behavior than people who privilege ‘self‐enhancing’ values that focus on individual gain or status . Attitudes may be defined as ‘a learned predisposition to respond in a consistently favourable or unfavourable manner with respect to a given object.’ Large‐scale meta‐analyses have shown that, in contrast to values, attitudes are less enduring and less linked with pro‐environmental behavior .…”

Reflections on climate change communication research and practice in the second decade of the 21st century: what more is there to say?

“…Out of this context, the role of values, beliefs, worldviews, identity, and meaning‐making has become one of the most prominent occupations of climate communication researchers . Among the critical takeaways from this body of work is that, first, we all hear, perceive, make sense of, and judge incoming information (be it spoken, written, visual, or sensory) through the filters of culturally transmitted values and no one can escape this influence although we can become conscious of this influence and actively probe it, if we are willing.…”

Concerning values: what underlies public polarisation about climate change?

“…Most have found that self-transcendent values positively predict support for climate policy (Cheung et al, 2014;Drews & van den Bergh, 2016;Howell & Allen, 2017;Schoenefeld & McCauley, 2016). While some such studies have used instruments designed to measure the whole spectrum of values theorised by Schwartz, several have restricted themselves to questions relating to the self-enhancement versus self-transcendence value dimension of the theory (Howell & Allen, 2017;Nilsson et al, 2004;Nordlund & Garvill, 2002;Schoenefeld & McCauley, 2016;Steg et al, 2005). Given that self-enhancement values are opposed to self-transcendent values in the Schwartz values model, most of these studies find a negative effect of self-enhancement values on support for climate policy.…”