Title |
Regulating Emotional Responses to Climate Change – A Construal Level Perspective
|
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Published in |
Frontiers in Psychology, May 2018
|
DOI | 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00629 |
Pubmed ID | |
Authors |
Emma Ejelöv, André Hansla, Magnus Bergquist, Andreas Nilsson |
Abstract |
This experimental study (N = 139) examines the role of emotions in climate change risk communication. Drawing on Construal Level Theory, we tested how abstract vs. concrete descriptions of climate threat affect basic and self-conscious emotions and three emotion regulation strategies: changing oneself, repairing the situation and distancing oneself. In a 2 × 2 between subjects factorial design, climate change consequences were described as concrete/abstract and depicted as spatially proximate/distant. Results showed that, as hypothesized, increased self-conscious emotions mediate overall positive effects of abstract description on self-change and repair attempts. Unexpectedly and independent of any emotional process, a concrete description of a spatially distant consequence is shown to directly increase self-change and repair attempts, while it has no such effects when the consequence is spatially proximate. "Concretizing the remote" might refer to a potentially effective strategy for overcoming spatial distance barriers and motivating mitigating behavior. |
X Demographics
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Portugal | 1 | 14% |
Australia | 1 | 14% |
Sweden | 1 | 14% |
Switzerland | 1 | 14% |
Unknown | 3 | 43% |
Demographic breakdown
Type | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Members of the public | 5 | 71% |
Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 1 | 14% |
Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 1 | 14% |
Mendeley readers
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Unknown | 154 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Student > Master | 29 | 19% |
Student > Bachelor | 19 | 12% |
Researcher | 16 | 10% |
Student > Ph. D. Student | 16 | 10% |
Other | 10 | 6% |
Other | 25 | 16% |
Unknown | 39 | 25% |
Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Psychology | 53 | 34% |
Social Sciences | 17 | 11% |
Business, Management and Accounting | 6 | 4% |
Decision Sciences | 6 | 4% |
Economics, Econometrics and Finance | 5 | 3% |
Other | 27 | 18% |
Unknown | 40 | 26% |