Framing Climate Change: Exploring the Role of Emotion in Generating Advocacy Behavior

By Robin L. Nabi, Abel Gustafson, R. Jensen. Science communication, 2018

392 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Substantial research examines the cognitive factors underlying proenviron-mental message effectiveness. In contrast, this study investigates the role of emotion, fear and hope specifically, in the gain/loss framing of environmental policy initiatives. The 2 (threat vs. no threat) × 2 (gain- vs. loss-framed efficacy) experiment revealed emotion, especially hope, as a key mediator between gain-framed messages and desired climate change policy attitudes and advocacy. Results further supported the value of sequencing emotional experiences to enhance persuasive effect. This research offers an inaugural test of emotional flow theorizing and highlights the need for additional research on emotional processes in environmental communication.

Subfields: Literature and Literary Theory, Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/27ef070c70aea215baa295c12159fad4385f77dd

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In Literature and Literary Theory

In Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

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Citations in the corpus

Positive emotions and climate change (2021, neutral): “Some research has investigated the role of hope as a mediating variable [42,43].”
Identifying the most important predictors of support for climate policy in the United States (2020, background): “…use vivid simulations of likely consequences of climate change (Weber, 2006) or vivid imagery (Goldberg et al., 2019b) to amplify worry and negative affect and then follow up with a message that induces hope via information, images, or stories about climate solutions (e.g., Nabi et al., 2018).”