Public risk perceptions, understandings and responses to climate change

Reser, Joseph P.; Bradley, Graham Leslie; Ellul, Michelle

doi:10.1002/9781118845028.ch6

Cited by 118 publications

(221 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…NEP items are presented in Table I, along with subscale factor loadings and internal consistencies. 3) Climate change mitigation behaviors were assessed using a 20-item carbon footprint scale developed by Reser et al [16]. Respondents indicated how often (1 = never, 4 = most of the time) they engaged in a range of behaviors associated with reduced carbon emissions (e.g., Use compact florescent light bulbs, reduce air travel, purchase energy efficient appliances, etc).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Environmental Worldviews and Climate Change Mitigation Behaviors: Testing the New Ecological Scale in the Smallest Space Analysis for Chinese Samples

Xue¹,

Zhao²

2015

IJESD

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Environmental Worldviews and Climate Change Mitigation Behaviors: Testing the New Ecological Scale in the Smallest Space Analysis for Chinese Samples

Xue¹,

Zhao²

2015

IJESD

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“…These findings support the idea that bringing climate change psychologically closer can under certain circumstances have the expected motivational effects. However, the qualification that experiencing extreme weather events only increases 5 levels of engagement with climate change when people attribute their experiences to climate change highlights that additional psychological or ideological processes are at work that complicate the effects of such experiences [40][41][42][45][46][47] .A crucial question that follows from this analysis is to what extent researchers and practitioners can study the relationship between experiences with phenomena that people believe to be manifestations of climate change and people's readiness to engage with climate change. Many existing studies suffer from a range of methodological constraints simply because the researchers have had to capitalise, after the event, on unpredictable phenomena that have already occurred.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…More importantly, the finding that personal experiences have the most consistent positive effects when individuals attribute them to climate change [40][41][42][43] An alternative way to bring climate change closer to people is to reduce the psychological distance that people perceive when they think about this issue. Support for this idea comes from a study that explored how people perceived climate change relative to several dimensions of psychological distance.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…People who report having experienced changes or events in the natural environment that they think were caused by climate change are more likely to believe that climate change is relevant to their local area and themselves 42 than people who did not report such experience. More specifically, experiencing phenomena attributed to climate change was associated with increased perceptions of personal and local risks from climate change [41][42][43] and higher levels of concern and worry about this threat 41,42 . Last but not least, people who felt that they had personally experienced climate change through weather-related events or changes were more likely to support mitigation 41,42 and adaptation 44 measures (for an overview, see ref.…”

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Psychological responses to the proximity of climate change

et al. 2015

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A frequent suggestion to increase individuals' willingness to take action on climate change and to support relevant policies is to highlight its proximal consequences, that is, consequences that are close in space and time. However, previous studies that have tested this proximising approach have not revealed the expected positive effects on individual action and support for addressing climate change. We present three lines of psychological reasoning that provide compelling arguments as to why highlighting proximal impacts of climate change might not be as effective a way to increase individual mitigation and adaptation efforts as is often assumed. Our contextualisation of the proximising approach within established psychological research suggests that, depending on the particular theoretical perspective one takes to this issue, and on specific individual characteristics suggested by these perspectives, proximising can bring about the intended positive effects, can have no (visible) effect, or can even backfire. Thus, the effects of proximising are much more complex than is commonly assumed. Revealing this complexity contributes to a refined theoretical understanding of the role psychological distance plays in the context of climate change and opens up further avenues for future research and for interventions. KeywordsPsychological distance, personal experience, place attachment, threat, risk perception, defensiveness, mitigation, adaptation 3 Research on public perceptions of climate change often shows that people, at least in Western countries, typically perceive climate change as a distant threat, as something that affects strangers, and as something that happens in remote times and places, rather than in the here and now [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] (for an exception, see ref. 8 ). This perception of climate change as a distant threat is problematic because it implies little personal relevance. Low levels of personal relevance in turn are problematic because individuals' perception of being personally at risk can be an important motivation to take action against the source of that risk 9-14 .Consistent with this analysis, it has repeatedly been suggested that highlighting the proximal consequences of climate change could be an important part of strategies to engage and mobilize publics around this issue 3,[15][16][17][18][19][20] . Although the assumed psychological mechanism of proximising is often not verbalised (see also ref. 21 , where the term is used to describe a discursive strategy in which the speaker presents physically and temporally distant events as close and directly relevant to the addressee), the rationale behind proximising climate change seems to be that this approach (a) decreases the psychological distance between the issue and individuals who could or should act 17,22 and, (b) makes the consequences of climate change easier to visualise 4,23 and more personally relevant 24,25 . Moreover, proximising climate change is believed to increase (emotional) concern 16,22,26,27 and the feeling o...

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Investigating the effects of knowledge and ideology on climate change beliefs

Guy

Kashima

Walker

et al. 2014

Euro J Social Psych

120

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The divergence of public opinion and climate science in the English‐speaking world, particularly the United States and Australia, has attracted a variety of explanations. One of the more interesting accounts, from a psychological perspective, is the influence of ideology on climate change beliefs. Previous work suggests that ideology trumps knowledge in shaping climate change beliefs. However, these studies have typically examined the influence of proxy measures of knowledge rather than specific climate change knowledge. The goal of the present research was to provide some clarification on the different influences of knowledge and ideology on beliefs about climate change. Specifically, we investigated the relationship between specific climate change knowledge, hierarchical and individualistic ideology, and climate change belief in a national sample (N = 335) of the Australian public. Contrary to research involving proxy knowledge measures, we found that people who had greater knowledge of climate change causes were more willing to accept that climate change is occurring. Furthermore, knowledge of causes attenuated the negative relationship between individualistic ideology and belief that climate change exists. Our findings suggest that climate change knowledge has the potential to positively influence public discourse on the issue. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Public risk perceptions, understandings and responses to climate change

Cited by 118 publications

References 11 publications

The Environmental Worldviews and Climate Change Mitigation Behaviors: Testing the New Ecological Scale in the Smallest Space Analysis for Chinese Samples

The Environmental Worldviews and Climate Change Mitigation Behaviors: Testing the New Ecological Scale in the Smallest Space Analysis for Chinese Samples

Psychological responses to the proximity of climate change

Investigating the effects of knowledge and ideology on climate change beliefs

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