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Determinants and Measurement of Climate Change Risk Perception, Worry, and Concern.

April 2017

April 2017

DOI:10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.013.318

In book: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Editors: M. Nisbett

Authors:

Sander van der Linden

University of Cambridge

Individuals, both within and between different countries, vary substantially in the extent to which they view climate change as a risk. What could explain such variation in climate change risk perception around the world? Climate change is relatively unique as a risk in the sense that it is difficult for people to experience directly or even detect on a purely perceptual or sensory level. In fact, research across the social and behavioral sciences has shown that although people might correctly perceive some changes in long-term climate conditions, psychological factors are often much more influential in determining how the public perceives the risk of climate change. Indeed, decades of research has shown that cognitive, affective, social, and cultural factors all greatly influence the public’s perception of risk, and that these factors, in turn, often interact with each other in complex ways. Yet, although a wide variety of cognitive, experiential, socio-cultural and demographic characteristics have all proven to be relevant, are there certain factors that systematically stand out in explaining and predicting climate change risk perception around the world? And even if so, what do we mean, exactly, by the term “risk perception” and to what extent does the way in which risk perception is measured influence the outcome? Last but certainly not least, how important is public concern about climate change in determining people’s level of behavioral engagement and policy-support for the issue?

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Determinants and Measurement of Climate Change Risk Perception, Worry, and Concern

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Summary and Keywords

Individuals, both within and between different countries, vary substantially in the extent

to which they view climate change as a risk. What could explain such variation in climate

change risk perception around the world? Climate change is relatively unique as a risk in

the sense that it is difficult for people to experience directly or even detect on a purely

perceptual or sensory level. In fact, research across the social and behavioral sciences

has shown that although people might correctly perceive some changes in long-term

climate conditions, psychological factors are often much more influential in determining

how the public perceives the risk of climate change. Indeed, decades of research has

shown that cognitive, affective, social, and cultural factors all greatly influence the

public’s perception of risk, and that these factors, in turn, often interact with each other

in complex ways. Yet, although a wide variety of cognitive, experiential, socio-cultural

and demographic characteristics have all proven to be relevant, are there certain factors

that systematically stand out in explaining and predicting climate change risk perception

around the world? And even if so, what do we mean, exactly, by the term “risk

perception” and to what extent does the way in which risk perception is measured

influence the outcome? Last but certainly not least, how important is public concern

about climate change in determining people’s level of behavioral engagement and policy-

support for the issue?

Keywords: risk perception, climate change, global warming, worry, concern, public opinion

The Nature of Human Risk Perception

Risk does not exist independent of our minds and culture.

— Paul Slovic (1992, p. 690)

Determinants and Measurement of Climate Change Risk

Perception, Worry, and Concern

Sander van der Linden

Subject: Climate Change Communication Online Publication Date: Mar 2017

DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.013.318

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science

Determinants and Measurement of Climate Change Risk Perception, Worry, and Concern

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The perception of risk is a mental construct (Sjöberg, 2000A) and human perception is

rather unique in the sense that it allows for a differentiation between the existence of

objective real-world threats, such as climate change, and the subjective perceptual

evaluation of those threats (Rosa, 2003). For example, although climate change is one of

the greatest existential threats to life on earth, risk judgments of global warming vary

greatly from one individual to another (e.g., Hine et al., 2013; Maibach et al., 2011; Metag,

Füchslin, & Schäfer, 2015; Whitmarsh, 2011).

Furthermore, there is considerable cross-cultural variation in both the intensity of

collective public concern as well as general willingness to address the issue (Bord,

Fisher, & Robert, 1998; Brechin & Bhandari, 2011; Capstick et al., 2015 Howe et al., 2015; Kim

& Wolinsky-Nahmias, 2014; Leiserowitz, 2007; Lee et al., 2015). For example, many large-

scale reviews and analyses of public opinion polls have shown that climate change has

consistently been perceived as a “very serious” problem in the United Kingdom,

Australia, and most of continental Europe (e.g., Bord et al., 1998; Lorenzoni & Pidgeon,

2006; Pidgeon, 2012; Reser et al., 2012) whereas concern, while waxing and waning, has

traditionally been lower in countries such as the United States, China, and Russia (e.g.,

Brechin & Bhandari, 2011; Lee et al., 2015; Leiserowitz, 2007).

Another relatively stable trend is that compared to many developed countries, climate

change is generally perceived as a much greater risk in most of the developing world

(Kim & Wolinsky-Nahmias, 2014; Lee et al., 2015; Leiserowitz, 2007). Last but not least,

although overall “awareness” and “concern” about climate change has generally

increased around the globe over the last quarter century (Capstick et al., 2015; Moser,

2010), the public still ranks climate change as a low priority compared to many other

societal issues, such as terrorism, health care, and the economy (Lorenzoni & Pidgeon,

2006; Nisbet & Myers, 2007; Motel, 2014). This low sense of urgency is partly due to the fact

that climate change is an abstract statistical concept that refers to long-term changes in

the variability of the earth’s climate (Weber, 2010). Unlike most ecological risks humans

have been exposed to for millions of years, human-caused climate change is unique: it is

global in nature and stretches over centuries (Breakwell, 2010). Moreover, the slow-

moving, cumulative, and unsituated nature of climate change makes it not only

evolutionarily novel (van Vugt, Griskevicius, & Schultz, 2014) but also difficult to directly

perceive and experience for people (Weber, 2010; Whitmarsh, 2008A). These characteristics

are important to understand because the subjective psychological nature of risk

perception is exactly what allows for substantial heterogeneity to exist across individuals

and nations.

Accordingly, the quantity of social and behavioral science research exploring what factors

shape public perceptions of climate change has increased exponentially over the last

Determinants and Measurement of Climate Change Risk Perception, Worry, and Concern

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decade (Moser, 2010; Weber, 2016). The goal of this chapter is to put the field’s intellectual

history in perspective as well as structure, organize, and synthesize the weight of

evidence on three important questions: (a) what social, psychological, cultural, political,

and physical factors have shown to consistently explain and predict public risk

perceptions of climate change around the world? (b) to what extent do these results

hinge upon how “risk perception” is measured and operationalized in the first place? and

climate change on one hand, and individual behavior change on the other, including

public support for climate change adaptation and mitigation policies?

The Factors That Shape Climate Change Risk

Perception Around the World

The study of risk perception grew out of the observation that when it comes to assessing

many technological and natural hazards, the views of the lay public often seem to diverge

(quite sharply) from expert assessments (Slovic, Fischhoff, & Lichtenstein, 1982; Starr,

1969). For many researchers, this divergence was both interesting and puzzling and

inspired the study of how people construe their mental representations of risks. Climate

change is a perfect case in point. For example, although many independent studies have

shown that over 97% of climate scientists agree that human-caused climate change is

happening (e.g., Anderegg et al., 2010; Cook et al., 2016; Powell, 2016), only about half of

Americans share this belief (Leiserowitz et al., 2016).

Fueled by the discovery of a number of cognitive heuristics people seem to use to

navigate an uncertain world, much early risk perception research was rooted in an area

of cognitive psychology known as “judgment and decision-making” (Kahneman, Slovic, &

Tversky, 1982). Specifically, the so-called “psychometric paradigm” pioneered the process

of identifying explanatory factors in risk perception (Slovic, 1987). Yet, following the

cognitive revolution, scholars increasingly began to criticize the overly “cognitive”

approach to the study of risk by highlighting the neglected yet important role of emotions

in shaping risk judgments. This development led to the conclusion that how people feel

about a particular risk often has a (more) powerful influence on their thinking

(Loewenstein et al., 2001; Slovic et al., 2004). Since then, so-called “dual-process” theories

have postulated that people comprehend risks in two fundamentally different ways;

analytically and experientially, and although these are often referred to as “two separate

modes of thinking,” they often operate in parallel (Chaiken & Trope, 1999; Epstein, 1994;

Kahneman, 2011; Marx et al., 2007; Sloman, 1996; van der Linden, 2014A).

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The still predominantly “psychological” approach to studying risk was later criticized,

most notably by cultural anthropologist Mary Douglas and political scientist Aaron

Wildavsky, for neglecting the larger social, cultural, and political context in which risks

are framed and debated, and for depoliticizing the nature of risk. In other words, the

perception of risk was not solely to be seen as a matter of individual cognition and

emotion but also a function of deeply held worldviews and values about society and its

structural organization and functioning (Dake, 1992; Douglas & Wildavsky, 1982). This

development led to a third revolution in the study of risk perception, which is currently

still enjoying support through frameworks such as the Social Amplification of Risk

(Kasperson et al., 1988) and the Cultural Cognition Thesis—which aims to combine aspects

of the psychometric paradigm with the cultural theory of risk (Kahan, 2012).

All of these approaches have left a deep mark on the climate change risk perception

literature and although some attempts have been made to combine various schools of

thought (e.g., see Leiserowitz, 2006), when assessing the risk perception literature as a

whole, a severe lack of theoretical integration has been noted, with many of the

aforementioned dimensions often being assessed independently of each other (Wählberg,

2001; van der Linden, 2015A). In some sense, the field has become more theoretically

contested (Moser, 2016) with scholars disagreeing on the various approaches to the study

of risk perception (van der Linden, 2016A).

This complicates the process of “surveying the field.” To help advance and promote

further theoretical development in the literature, van der Linden (2015A) proposed an

integrated theory of risk perception that combines four key theoretical dimensions to

maximize explanatory power; “cognitive,” “experiential,” “socio-cultural” and “socio-

demographic” factors, also known as the “Climate Change Risk Perception

Model” (CCRPM). Empirically, these factors explained about 70% of the variation in risk

perception, which may well approximate the ceiling of the explanatory power of risk

perception models (Sjöberg, 2002). Accordingly, the framework is adopted here to help

organize, structure, and assess the empirical evidence for each of the major dimensions

that have shown to influence risk perceptions of climate change. The original formulation

of the Climate Change Risk Perception Model (CCRPM) included a fifth dimension,

entitled; “heuristics and biases” (Helgeson, van der Linden, & Chabay, 2012). This

dimension was later dropped from the model mainly for parsimony, as many heuristics

could reasonably be subsumed under one of the existing categories, but given the large

amount of heuristics and biases that have shown to influence global warming risk

perception in recent years, it warrants a separate discussion and I therefore reintroduce

the fifth dimension here for completeness.

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A conceptual representation of the model is provided in Figure 1. Note that these five

dimensions are not necessarily assumed to be independent, as will become clear from the

review, they can often be expected to interact in complex ways. For example, cognitive

and affective factors have shown to dynamically interact in shaping climate change risk

perception (Marx et al., 2007; van der Linden, 2014A). Additionally, the influence of socio-

demographic characteristics on risk perception and the use of heuristics and biases may

be conditional on cultural, affective, and cognitive factors. Thus, although Figure 1 is a

simplified representation of reality, it will be useful in organizing and synthesizing the

risk perception literature.

Cognitive Factors

The assumption that the public simply does not have enough information to accurately

evaluate societal risks has dominated the risk communication field for many years.

According to this view, if scientists would do a better job at explaining and

communicating climate science, then perhaps the public would be more concerned about

the issue. In the last two decades, the so-called “knowledge deficit” model of public

attitudes towards science has received fierce criticism (Sturgis & Allum, 2004), so much so

that polarization between “proponents” and “opponents” of education-based approaches

has increased substantially (Ranney & Clark, 2016). Yet, this dichotomy is somewhat

misleading. For example, what is meant by “knowledge” is often left undefined and the

wholesale dismissal of “knowledge” as a driver of risk perception begs the age-old

question of whether or not “cognition” is a necessary prerequisite for judgment formation

(Lai, Hagoort, & Casasanto, 2012). In other words, if one has no basic awareness of the

climate change problem, then how can a judgment about the issue be formed? Formally,

risk assessment is usually thought of as the product of two properties, namely; (a) the

probability with which an adverse event (e.g., climate change) is likely to occur and (b)

the severity of the negative consequences associated with that event (e.g., death,

damages). Thus, if the public understands that climate change is occurring, caused by

Click to view larger

Figure 1. Climate Change Risk Perception Model

adopted from van der Linden (2015A).

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humans, and has negative consequences, they should (in theory) be concerned about the

issue. Yet, while varying substantially, deeper public understanding of climate change

around the world remains limited and is often rooted in influential misperceptions (Bord

et al., 1998; Brechin, 2003; Leiserowitz, 2007; Weber & Stern, 2011). Climate literacy is

especially low in the United States (e.g., Leiserowitz, Smith, & Marlon, 2010) while

substantially less is presently known about public understanding of climate change in the

non-Western world (Capstick et al., 2015).

Much early work on climate cognition was trying to understand the way in which

individuals process, classify, and organize new information, the study of so-called “mental

models,” that is, people’s intuitive and contextual understanding of how something works

(Kearney & Kaplan, 1997; Morgan et al., 2002). This line of research revealed that people

often have difficulty understanding the physical mechanisms underlying global climate

change, are unaware of the prevailing scientific consensus, and confuse climate change

with other environmental issues or hold misperceptions about the type of actions that are

effective in helping to reduce climate change (e.g., Bord et al., 1998; Bostrom et al., 1994;

Kempton, 1991; Nisbet & Myers, 2007; Read et al., 1994; Sterman & Booth Sweeney, 2007;

Sterman, 2008; Whitmarsh, 2009).

Although public awareness has generally increased since then (Capstick et al., 2015), many

of these deeper misperceptions continue to persist (e.g., see Brechin, 2003; Ranney &

Clark, 2016; Reynolds et al., 2010). When it comes to investing scarce resources in public

education about climate change, perhaps the more prudent and difficult question to

answer is how important cognitive knowledge about climate change is in shaping public

risk perception?

The answer, in part, depends on the method that is used to gauge the public’s

“knowledge” and understanding of climate change (Roser-Renouf & Nisbet, 2008; van der

Linden, 2015A). For example, there is a notable and important difference between an

individual’s subjective self-assessment of how much they believe they know about climate

change, and the actual level of correct knowledge people hold about the issue. Studies

using single-item measures, such as, “How much do you feel you know about global

warming?” have reported mixed results. For instance, Kellstedt et al. (2008) found that

knowledge is largely unrelated to concern. In contrast, Heath and Gifford (2006) report a

positive link whereas Malka, Krosnick, and Langer (2009) conclude that the knowledge-

concern relationship may be moderated by political ideology.

Although global self-assessments may sometimes provide a crude estimate of a latent

psychological disposition (van der Linden & Rosenthal, 2016), subjective, self-reported

climate knowledge measures are generally deemed unreliable (Roser-Renouf & Nisbet,

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2008) and often prove inconsistent with more objective assessments (Hornsey et al., 2016;

Shi et al., 2016).

For example, Guy et al. (2014) found—using objective measures—that greater knowledge

actually attenuates the (negative) effect of ideological worldviews, resulting in a positive

relationship between more knowledge about climate change and public concern.

More generally, research that has attempted to objectively score and assess how much

people know about climate change typically finds a significant positive relationship

between more accurate knowledge about climate change and public risk perception

(Hidalgo & Pisano, 2010; Milfont, 2012; O’Connor, Bord, & Fisher, 1999; Sundblad et al., 2007;

Shi et al., 2016; van der Linden, 2015A). To further deconstruct the role of knowledge in risk

perception, scholars have proposed a conceptual distinction between three different

types of knowledge, including (declarative) knowledge about the causes and physical

mechanisms underlying climate change, knowledge about the impacts and consequences

of climate change, and (procedural) knowledge about how to respond and implement

potential solutions (Tobler et al., 2012; van der Linden, 2015A). In fact, a number of recent

large-scale studies have shed new and important light on the role of knowledge as a

predictor of risk perception. For example, in an unprecedented analysis of 119 countries,

Lee et al. (2015) find that both educational attainment and the understanding that climate

change is human-caused are important predictors of public risk perception worldwide.

Similarly, in another large study, Shi et al. (2016) find that across three continents,

different forms of climate knowledge are significant predictors of climate change risk

perception.

Although the weight of evidence is clearly in favor of a positive association between

knowledge about climate change and public concern, a logical next question is whether it

is possible to quantify how much knowledge matters? In an attempt to partition out the

unique variance explained by different forms of objective climate knowledge (while

controlling for other key constructs, such as norms and values), van der Linden (2015A)

estimates that knowledge about climate change explains roughly 10% of the variance in

public concern about climate change. In a cross-cultural follow-up study, Shi et al. (2016)

place this estimate between 2% and 18%, thus, there may be significant cross-cultural

variation in how much knowledge contributes (Lee et al., 2015; Shi et al., 2016). Overall, a

recent meta-analysis synthesizing 171 studies across 56 nations revealed that objective

knowledge shares a small to medium correlation with climate beliefs (r = 0.25),

explaining about 6.5% of the variance (Hornsey et al., 2016).

In conclusion, knowledge is likely a necessary but clearly not sufficient condition for

public concern. Having said this, it is reasonable to hypothesize that some forms of

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knowledge may be more important than others (Kaiser & Fuhrer, 2003). Indeed, not all

types of knowledge about climate change exert an equal amount of influence on risk

perception (Shi et al., 2016; van der Linden, 2015A). To illustrate, perhaps better procedural

knowledge of what actions people can take to help reduce climate change is most

pressing (van der Linden, 2015A). On the other hand, understanding the human causes of

climate change is often a prerequisite for accepting the need for mitigatory action in the

first place (Guy et al., 2014; Lee et al., 2015). Accordingly, the potential synergy between

these different forms of climate knowledge should not be neglected or underestimated

(Kaiser & Fuhrer, 2003; van der Linden, 2015A). In short, researchers interested in studying

the role of climate knowledge in public risk perception are advised to take note of these

conceptual distinctions and implement objective assessments whenever possible.

Experiential Processing

Negative Affect

In addition to holding cognitive knowledge about a particular risk, people frequently

experience risks in affective and emotional terms as well. In fact, the “risk-as-feelings”

hypothesis suggests that when cognitive and affective risk judgments diverge, affective

reactions are often more dominant in processing (Loewenstein et al., 2001). Early research

in affective neuroscience postulated that over time, through learning and experience,

people’s mental representations of objects and events become “tagged” with affective

associations that guide subsequent judgment formation. These instantaneous and

evaluative judgments of things people like, dislike, find positive or negative are known as

“somatic markers” (Damasio, 1994). Closely associated with a risk-factor known as

“dread,” this later formed the basis of what has become widely known as the “affect-

heuristic” (Slovic et al., 2004, 2007). In particular, people often rely on what is called an

“affective pool,” which essentially includes all the positive and negative associations that

people hold in memory with respect to a given risk object (Breakwell, 2010).

Yet, at the same time, some conceptual confusion over the meaning of the term “affect”

has led to a notable debate in the risk perception literature (e.g., see van der Pligt et al.,

1998; Wardman, 2006). For example, the concept of “affect” is theoretically distinct from

other, more discrete types of emotions such as fear or worry. Instead, affect is generally

described as a quick associative judgment or a “faint whisper of emotion” (Slovic &

Peters, 2006). Other scholars have noted that this definition is analogous to what is

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generally considered to be the evaluative component of an individual’s attitude. In fact,

the concept of “attitude” has traditionally been defined as “the affect for or against a

psychological object” (Thurstone, 1931, p. 261).

Sjöberg has argued that if “affect” reflects an “attitude” and if “affect” is often falsely

equated in the literature with the term “emotion,” then we would mistakenly assume that

“emotions” play a crucial role in risk perception (Sjöberg, 2006). In addition, the

operational validity of the affect-heuristic and the explanatory power of the “dread”

factor in risk perception have both been questioned (e.g., Sjöberg, 2006, 2007). For

example, while negative affect is often inferred from self-reports in surveys, some implicit

association tests have revealed that affective judgments correlate more strongly with

explicit attitudes rather than quick associative reactions to stimuli (Townsend, Spence, &

Knowles, 2014). Other research has questioned the structure of the “risk-as-feelings”

model (Kobbeltved et al., 2005) and has suggested that some dimensions of the “affect-

heuristic,” e.g., the good-or-badness of an object (Slovic et al., 2007) likely conflates

affective with moral judgments (van der Linden, 2015A), at least to the extent that one is

interested in affective and not affective-based moral judgments (Roeser, 2009).

Nonetheless, it should be stressed that some of these conceptual objections, while valid,

do not weigh up against the depth and breadth of empirical evidence that has

documented the critical function of emotion in risk perception (Finucane, 2012; Wardman,

2006). For example, pioneering research examining global warming “affective imagery”

finds that the first thing that comes to mind for most people when thinking about global

warming are bleak and negative associations related to the impacts of climate change

(Leiserowitz, 2006; Leviston et al., 2014; Lorenzoni et al., 2006; Smith & Leiserowitz, 2012).

Accordingly, affective imagery and holistic negative affect have both shown to be

important predictors of global warming risk perception (Leiserowitz, 2006; Smith &

Leiserowitz, 2012; Sundblad et al., 2007; van der Linden, 2015A). In fact, explaining about

20%–30% of the variance by itself, negative affect often emerges as one of the single

most important determinants of global warming risk perception (Leiserowitz, 2006; van der

Linden, 2015A). Having said this, there is a much needed but notable lack of research

exploring the affective basis of concern about global warming in the non-Western world.

A final issue concerns the conceptual relationship between “affect” and “cognition,”

which is particularly important to the context of climate change. A large body of

converging research across social, cognitive, and clinical psychology has pointed towards

a complex “dual” or “parallel” process relationship between cognition and affect,

suggesting that the human brain processes information about risks in two fundamentally

different ways, with one system being slower, conscious, analytical, and rule-based,

whereas the other is faster, unconscious, associative, and automatic (Chaiken & Trope,

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1999; Epstein, 1994; Kahneman, 2011; Loewenstein et al., 2001; Marx et al., 2007; Pessoa, 2008;

Sloman, 1996).

The primacy of “affect” as an independent force in shaping (risk) judgments has been

debated at length in psychology (Clore & Ortony, 2000; Lazarus, 1984; Loewenstein et al.,

2001; Zajonc, 1984), and although the human brain is fast and experienced in mapping

environmental cues directly into affective responses (Weber, 2006), it is increasingly

recognized that the “primacy” of affect versus cognition is context-dependent (Lai,

Hagoort, & Casasanto, 2012). For example, because the risk of climate change does not

automatically trigger the brain’s “affective” system (Weber, 2006), some cognitive

mediation is likely to occur. In other words, while the public may personally experience

the impacts of global warming, in order for people to form negative affective judgments

about climate change, such personal experiences need to be mentally associated with

climate change (Weber, 2010; van der Linden, 2014A). Accordingly, research has started to

reveal how the dynamic bi-directional relationship between cognitive and affective

processes shape public risk perceptions of global warming (van der Linden, 2014A).

This raises some important questions about the conceptual relationship between “affect”

and “risk perception.” In particular, it suggests that modeling affect solely as a

determinant of risk perception (and not risk perception also as a determinant of affect),

may fail to specify the true nature of the relationship between affect and cognition

(Jackson, Allum, & Gaskell, 2006). This issue is not particular to risk researchers, linear

models and linear thinking is widespread throughout the social sciences, but as tools are

being developed to allow for more complex, dynamic, and accurate representations of

reality, future research would be well-advised to focus on the link between cognition and

emotion in shaping global warming risk judgments. For example, it remains unclear

whether exposing people to vicarious imagery about global warming activates neural

substrates related to affective-based information processing, and, moreover, to what

extent such activation interacts with, or is mediated by, cognitive processes. With new

technological advances such as virtual reality simulations of climate change impacts

(Zaalberg & Midden, 2013) and emerging fields such as “communication

neuroscience” (Berkman & Falk, 2013), such integrated methodologies may become

increasingly accessible to social scientists.

Personal Experience

Akerlof et al. (2013) ask a crucial question; “Do people ‘personally experience’ global

warming, and if so, how, and does it matter?” Although experience can be a powerful

teacher, this is a difficult question to answer. From an indirect point of view, the answer

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would appear “yes,” as it is through personal experiences that people form affective

associations, and affective judgments of future risks largely depend on the vividness with

which negative impacts can be imagined (Damasio, 1994; Risen & Critcher, 2011; Weber,

2006). Whether personal experience with climate change also has a direct impact on global

warming risk perception has become a source of debate and somewhat hinges upon how

“personal experience” is defined and measured.

As the literature and methodologies available to researchers examining this question has

grown over the years, it is useful to introduce a conceptual distinction between

“detection of environmental change” and personal experiences with “extreme weather.”

A common sense assumption among many climate scientists has been that as the average

global temperature continues to rise, people will eventually “catch on.” Yet, perceptual

detection of global warming is difficult because people only experience highly variable

local weather patterns, which are not always reflective of long-terms trends in the earth’s

climate (Pawlik, 1991). Nonetheless, in a large study covering 89 countries, Howe et al.

(2013) find that, on average, individuals living in places with rising temperatures are

indeed more likely than others to perceive local warming. Other studies also find that

public perceptions do broadly track with instrumental climate data, such as seasonal

weather, temperature, and precipitation change (Akerlof et al., 2013; Hamilton & Keim,

2009; Howe & Leiserowitz, 2013). In addition, a large body of work shows that the

experience and detection of heat and warm daily temperatures is associated with concern

about global warming (e.g., Brooks et al., 2014; Li, Johnson, & Zaval, 2011; Risen &

Critcher, 2011). In contrast, Marquart-Pyatt et al. (2014) argue against the theory that

changes in climatic conditions will produce noticeable shifts in public perception, as their

analyses suggests that objective climatic changes only have a negligible effect on concern

about climate change. McCright, Dunlap, and Xiao (2014) provide mixed evidence,

supporting the finding that actual temperature anomalies influence perceived warming,

but question how much this practically “matters.”

The relationship between global warming risks perception and (subjective) personal

experience with visceral extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, flooding, heat

waves, and droughts appears more robust, with a large body of evidence supporting a

significant association (Akerlof et al., 2013; Capstick & Pidgeon, 2014; Howe et al., 2014;

Krosnick et al., 2006; Myers et al., 2012; Reser et al., 2014; Spence et al., 2012; Taylor et al.,

2014; van der Linden, 2015A)—with only a few exceptions (Brulle et al., 2012; Whitmarsh,

2008A). Yet, in determining the importance of accurate detection and personal experience,

a major theme that has cropped up is the finding that the magnitude of the association

appears rather small in comparison to the role of political ideology (Marquart-Pyatt et al.,

2014; McCright et al., 2014; Shao & Goidel, 2016).

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This finding particularly makes sense in countries where the issue of climate change is

highly politicized, such as the United States (McCright & Dunlap, 2011A). Accordingly,

studies have revealed a more complex and dynamic relationship between perceived

“local” experience and worldviews, so that personal beliefs about global warming color

one’s perception of local change and vice versa (Myers et al., 2012; Howe & Leiserowitz,

2013; Schuldt & Roh, 2014).

Other studies have noted that the association between personal experience and risk

perception is not attenuated by political ideology (Akerlof et al., 2013; Egan & Mullin, 2012),

although the magnitude of the remaining effect appears low (e.g., van der Linden, 2015A).

In their recent meta-analysis, Hornsey et al. (2016) classify the effect-size of local and

extreme weather experience as “low to medium.” Part of the issue in quantifying the

importance of personal experience is a lack of operational consistency in terms of what

qualifies as a significant “weather anomaly,” over what time period the change is

assessed, and whether people accurately recall their experiences. In addition, frequent

media use of the term “global warming” rather than “climate change” may limit the range

of experiences and weather phenomena that people associate with climate change and

thereby dampen its impact on risk perception (e.g., see Capstick & Pidgeon, 2014; Schuldt

& Roh, 2014). Other research suggests that the influence of (extreme) weather experiences

on public opinion decay rather quickly (Egan & Mullin, 2012) and so more longitudinal

assessments are therefore necessary (Reser et al., 2014). Lastly, it remains an open

question as to whether “personal experience” is best thought of as an indirect factor,

shaping people’s affective responses to climate change by making future impacts more

salient and easier to imagine (Risen & Critcher, 2011) or whether personal experience

should also be conceptualized as a direct predictor of global warming risk perception in

its own right.

Social and Cultural Influences

The Social Construction of Risk

In addition to both cognitive and affective theories, early sociological research criticized

existing approaches to the study of risk for the notable lack of consideration of social

influence processes (Dake, 1992; Douglas, 1978). This lack of attention for the social context

in which risks are framed and debated is indeed surprising, given that the way in which

people process and evaluate risks is clearly influenced by the thoughts, feelings, and

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decisions of other people (Joffe, 2003). In response, two sociological approaches were

developed, including Social Representations Theory (Moscovici, 1984) and the Social

Amplification of Risk Framework (Kasperson et al., 1988; Pidgeon et al., 2003). Albeit

different theories, what both approaches have in common is a focus on how interpersonal

interactions, societal norms, and the mass media shape and circulate social

representations of a given risk in society. The process of how risk signals are received,

interpreted, and diffused is particularly relevant in understanding how the

communication of climate risks is impacted and moderated by social processes. For

example, qualitative studies have argued that although climate change risks have indeed

been societally amplified (e.g., Renn, 2010; Smith & Joffe, 2013), it remains difficult to

quantify what the impact of these processes are on concern about global warming.

Accordingly, both approaches have been criticized for their vague “meta-theoretical”

nature (Voelklein & Howarth, 2005; Wåhlberg, 2001), particularly because the “societal”

level of analysis makes it difficult to identify and quantify the causal impact of various

social influence processes on risk perception (Renn, 2010).

In turn, social psychologists have focused more specifically on the role of social and

group norms and generally distinguish between “descriptive” and “prescriptive” norms,

where the former simply describes the behavior of similar others while the latter

prescribes how one ought to think or behave (Cialdini, Kallgren, & Reno, 1991). More

generally, social norms can be thought of as “expectations of how people are supposed to

act, think, or feel in specific situations” (Popenoe, 1983, p. 5). Although norms are

generally studied in relation to behavior (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Doherty & Webler,

2016), they influence perceptions too. In one study, van der Linden (2015A) showed that

both descriptive and prescriptive social norms exert a notable influence on global

warming risk perception, jointly contributing a substantial amount of the explained

variance (22%). In other words, the greater the extent to which climate change is viewed

as a serious risk by influential social referents, such as friends and family, the more it

amplifies and intensifies an individual’s own risk perception (van der Linden, 2015A). These

findings extend to communicating high social consensus about climate change among

influential out-groups too, such as scientists (Lewandowsky et al., 2013; van der Linden et

al., 2015). Other research has started to focus on the role of “network influence” and the

frequency with which people talk to or are influenced by close friends and family on the

issue of climate change (e.g., see Butts, 2016). Although this body of research is still

limited, studies have found that social network variables, such as homophily, network

size, and centrality have a significant influence on concern about global warming (Brody

et al., 2008; Leombruni, 2015). Nonetheless, unlike the rich behavioral literature, there

remains a substantial lack of research on the link between social influence processes and

climate change risk perception. For example, current studies infer network influence

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from self-reported survey data (Brody et al., 2008; Leombruni, 2015) rather than analyzing

and constructing actual social networks. Yet, with the increasing spread and transmission

of risk information on social media, new theories and methods are being developed,

including “social contagion theories of risk” (Scherer & Cho, 2003), social tipping points

(Kinzig et al., 2013; van der Linden, 2017), “sentiment” analyses on Twitter (Cody et al.,

2015), and the role of network opinion leaders (Nisbet & Kotcher, 2009). In short, much

exciting research remains to be done on the topic of normative influence and its impact

on concern about global warming.

Culture, Values, and Worldviews

The notion that culture gives rise to socially constructed systems of beliefs, or so-called,

“worldviews” has gained increased attention over the last decades (Dake, 1992). Perhaps

the most well-known response to the criticism that cognitive and affective psychological

theories “depoliticize” the nature of risk by failing to take account of the competing socio-

cultural structures of societies was rooted in the development of the “Cultural Theory of

Risk” (Douglas, 1970; Douglas & Wildavsky, 1982). Originally based on anthropological

research, cultural theory proposes a conceptual typology of risk-culture, also known as

the “grid-group” system, where four overarching worldviews are delineated. These

include: egalitarianism, individualism, hierarchism, and fatalism. The relative position of

these cultural types is determined by the degree to which individuals feel bounded by a

sense of belonging and solidarity (group) and the amount of control and structure that

people maintain in their social lives (grid). Wildavsky and Dake (1990) later

operationalized these cultural types so that they could be measured and tested

empirically. Since then, the Cultural Theory of Risk has generated a fierce and long-

standing debate in the risk perception literature, polarizing “proponents” and

“opponents.”

On one hand, cultural worldviews, particularly the individualism and egalitarianism

dimensions, have shown to differentially influence global warming risk perception

(Akerlof et al., 2013; Kahan et al., 2012; Leiserowitz, 2006; Smith & Leiserowitz, 2012; Xue et

al., 2014). On the other hand, scholars have argued that the actual explanatory power of

the cultural worldview scales are very low (Boholm, 1996; Marris, Langford, & O’Riordan,

1998; Oltedal et al., 2004; Sjöberg, 1997, 1998, 2012; van der Linden, 2015A, 2016A), which has led

some scholars to conclude that “cultural theory is simply wrong” (e.g., Sjöberg, 1998, p.

150). Yet, leaving the explanatory power of the theory aside for a moment, the other point

of contention revolves around two major issues in the literature, namely: (a) the

conceptual and empirical validity of the cultural worldview scales themselves and (b)

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whether it is appropriate or even informative, for that matter, to try to infer latent

cultural dispositions from individual-level data.

Starting with the more practical concern, the initial worldview scales were criticized for

having rather low scale reliability scores and for lacking basic construct and discriminant

validity (e.g., Boholm, 1996; Price, Walker, & Boschetti, 2014; Rippl, 2002; Sjöberg, 1998). This

issue is of particular relevance given that in practice, individuals often score high on

competing dimensions, which is problematic, because according to cultural theory,

individuals cannot be characterized by mutually incompatible worldviews (Kahan, 2012).

Moreover, even when scale reliabilities are improved, their explanatory power often

remains low (Rippl, 2002). In an attempt to combine research from the psychometric

paradigm with cultural theory, Kahan and colleagues advanced an alternative conception

of the cultural theory of risk known as the “cultural cognition thesis” (Kahan, 2012). The

basic premise of the cultural cognition thesis is that people are expected to credit or

dismiss empirical evidence about societal risks based on whether it coheres or conflicts

with their cultural values, a process described as “identity-protective cognition” (Kahan,

2012). The more recently developed cultural cognition scales have also shown to influence

climate change risk perception (e.g., Kahan et al., 2012).

In turn, the cultural cognition thesis has been heavily criticized, particularly for its

questionably low explanatory power (e.g., Boholm, 2015; Fremling & Lott, 2003; Sunstein,

2007; Swanson, 2010; van der Linden, 2016A). Although it may be argued that small effects

can still have important and practical consequences (Prentice & Miller, 1992), especially

when aggregating small changes across individual opinions, when the purpose is to

develop a theory of risk perception, the quality of the theory should be judged by its

overall explanatory power (Boholm, 2015; Sjöberg, 2012; van der Linden, 2015A). To this end,

recent meta-analyses do find some support for the cultural theory scales, but note that

consistent with prior research, the effect-sizes are often modest (Xue et al., 2014; Hornsey

et al., 2016).

One of the primary issues with both the original conception of cultural theory and its

successor, cultural cognition, is that the theory is tautological in its reasoning. In other

words, it is circular to suggest that “people of culture A habitually do X because they

share this particular culture A that prescribes that they do X” (Boholm, 1996, 2015). Indeed,

“by definition, the idea of cultural cognition is to illuminate risk perceptions only for

those risks that are culturally contested” (Sunstein, 2007, p. 17). In other words, to explain

public risk polarization on an issue such as climate change by (artificially) categorizing

the public into essentially two polarizing groups (individualists vs. egalitarians) is a so-

called “strange loop” (van der Linden, 2016A). Although such theoretical inconsistencies

are often overlooked, the consequences of pseudoscientific theorizing are serious

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(Gigerenzer, 2000). For example, they may render the empirical predictions resulting from

cultural cognition theory suspect (van der Linden, 2016A).

Another major issue in the literature is rooted in the systematic conflation of concepts

such as culture, values, worldviews, and ideology. For example, cultural cognition

explores how different political groups in the United States perceive a select number of

contemporary societal issues. In fact, the cultural cognition scales feature the word

“government” over 10 times (van der Linden, 2016A) and so it is unclear to what extent

cultural cognition is conceptually distinct from partisan motivated reasoning (e.g., see

Bolsen, Druckman, & Cook, 2014; Hart & Nisbet, 2012).

Furthermore, research has shown that the cultural scales proposed by both Dake (1991)

and Kahan and colleagues do not translate well to other cultures, such as China (Xue et

al., 2015).

Part of the issue is rooted in a problematic conception of the term “culture,” what it

refers to, and how different levels of culture interact with each other (e.g., political vs.

national culture). Moreover, values are not the same as worldviews (Koltko-Rivera, 2004;

van der Linden, 2016A). Whereas worldviews are very broad, situation-invariant orienting

dispositions, values are usually defined as fundamental guiding principles that not only

precede but are also more stable and specific than worldviews (Rokeach, 1973; Schwartz &

Wolfgang, 1987; Stern et al., 1999). It has been noted that cultural worldviews and values

overlap conceptually (Corner, Markowitz, & Pidgeon, 2014; Koltko-Rivera, 2004), because

cultures are essentially comprised of and characterized by their underlying values

structures (Hofstede, 2001; Schwartz, 1992).

The difficulty lies in the argument that latent cultural worldviews may not be an innate

psychological tendency that can reliably be inferred from individual-level data (DeGroot,

Steg, & Poortinga, 2013; Rippl, 2002). This is mainly so because cultural differences are best

observed between different countries and not between individuals within the same

country, given that cultural variation decreases when people with different backgrounds

assimilate into the same culture (Oreg & Katz-Gerro, 2006). Mary Douglas herself noted

that the motivation behind the concept of “cultural bias” was to explain cross-cultural

differences in risk construal (Douglas, 1978), not conflicts between political groups within

the same country (with the same culture). Although it can therefore be argued that the

concept of “culture” cannot be reduced to a single variable, the large-scale aggregation

of value preferences within and between societies may offer a conceptually more stable

and direct way to “proxy” shared enculturation in models of risk perception (DeGroot et

al., 2013; Slimak & Dietz, 2006; van der Linden, 2015A, 2016A).

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A prominent example is the conceptual distinction between so-called “egoistic,” “socio-

altruistic,” and “biospheric” value orientations (Stern, Dietz, & Kalof, 1993; Stern, 2000).

Some attractive properties of the values-approach are: (a) these value structures tend to

be the same in different countries (Schwartz & Sagiv, 1995), which makes standardization

and comparison easier and more meaningful; (b) values are not mutually exclusive, i.e.,

individuals can simultaneously express egoistic, socio-altruistic, and biospheric value

preferences but people (and therefore cultures) may prioritize these values differently

(Steg & De Groot, 2012); and lastly, (c) these value scales have been reliably validated in a

series of cross-cultural studies (De Groot & Steg, 2007, 2008, 2010; Schultz, 2001; Steg et al.,

2011; Stern & Dietz, 1994). Having said this, some scholars have noted that altruistic and

biospheric values tend to be strongly correlated (e.g., van der Linden, 2015A). Nonetheless,

it is possible that people’s concern for others and the environment could diverge, at

which point, the theoretical distinction may become more meaningful (DeGroot et al.,

2013). Although the application of values to the study of risk perception is relatively new in

comparison to cultural theory, biospheric or “environmental” values have shown to

reliably predict global warming risk perception (e.g., Brody et al., 2008; Milfont, 2012;

Hornsey et al., 2016; Slimak & Dietz, 2006; van der Linden, 2015A).

In conclusion, it should be acknowledged that any attempt to model individual risk

perception inevitably decontextualizes risk from the situation in which it arises.

Accordingly, there is some inherent difficulty in acknowledging the dynamic and

emergent nature of social practice on one hand, and the pursuit to try to represent the

“socio-cultural” as part of the individual, on the other. Nonetheless, over the last

decades, these questions have forced risk scholars to think harder and more carefully

about how culture shapes risk perception and the field would be well-served by further

attempts to bridge the “levels of analysis” divide (Jackson, Allum, & Gaskell, 2006). In part,

by clearly distinguishing and defining conceptual predictors (e.g., ideology, values,

culture, worldviews) so that better standardized comparisons can be conducted of the

various “cultural constructs” used to predict risk perceptions of climate change.

Socio-Demographic Characteristics

With a few exceptions, the weight of evidence on the influence of various socio-

demographic and social-structural factors on climate change risk perception is rather

mixed, as the results tend to vary from sample to sample and from study to study. For

example, while some studies find that higher education predicts stronger risk perceptions

of climate change (Hornsey et al., 2016; Lee et al., 2015; van der Linden, 2015A), other studies

find no education-effect (Akerlof et al., 2013; Brody et al., 2008; Kellstedt et al., 2008; Milfont,

2012; O’Connor et al., 1999 Sundblad et al., 2007) or even an inverse relationship between

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higher education and concern about climate change (e.g., Malka et al., 2009; Slimak &

Dietz, 2006). Results are equally inconsistent for age, with some studies revealing a small

negative correlation between (older) age and global warming risk perception (Heath &

Gifford, 2006; Hornsey et al., 2016; Kellstedt et al., 2008; Malka et al., 2009; Milfont, 2012),

whereas others find no significant (Akerlof et al., 2013; O’Connor et al., 1999; Sundblad et

al., 2007) or a positive correlation (e.g., Slimak & Dietz, 2006).

It has been hypothesized that individuals with higher income and resources might have

an increased sense of perceived control and thus view themselves as less vulnerable to

the impacts of climate change. Yet, evidence for this hypothesis is also quite mixed, as

the impact of income on risk perception appears marginal (cf. Akerlof et al., 2013; Hornsey

et al., 2016; Kellstedt et al., 2008; Malka et al., 2009; Milfont, 2012; Smith & Leiserowitz, 2012).

The influence of religion also appears limited (Kellstedt et al., 2008; Milfont, 2012; Smith &

Leiserowitz, 2012) with some U.S. studies finding a small negative effect (Clements, Xiao,

& McCright, 2014; Hamilton & Keim, 2009; Smith & Leiserowitz, 2013) while little is

currently known about non-Christian denominations. One reason for these inconsistencies

is that cognitive, affective, social, and cultural influences generally trump or mediate

much of the initial effect of socio-demographic characteristics on risk perception (e.g.,

see Akerlof et al., 2013; Dietz et al., 1998; Leiserowitz, 2006; van der Linden, 2015A).

Accordingly, most studies generally reveal weak direct effects, with socio-demographics

typically explaining only a small amount of the (unique) variance in global warming risk

perception (Hornsey et al., 2016; Slimak & Dietz, 2006; van der Linden, 2015A).

Nonetheless, some stable patterns have emerged for at least three factors in particular,

namely gender, race, and political ideology. To start with the latter, one robust finding is

that both political ideology (Liberal vs. Conservative) and political identity (Republican

vs. Democrat) consistently predict global warming risk perception, with Conservatives

and Republicans expressing systematically less concern about climate change than

Liberals and Democrats (Dunlap & McCright, 2008; Hamilton, 2011; Hornsey et al., 2016;

Leiserowitz, 2006; McCright & Dunlap, 2011B).

In the United States, this trend is part of a larger growing political divide on

environmental issues (McCright, Xiao, & Dunlap, 2014), which is often thought to be driven

by “party sorting,” a theory which suggests that political party activists fuel a process of

conflict between political elites, which then leads to party sorting within the general

public (McCright & Dunlap, 2011A). Political ideology has also shown to interact with other

factors in shaping risk perceptions of climate change, including knowledge, media

attention, and (lower) trust in climate science (Malka et al., 2009; McCright & Dunlap,

2011B; Leiserowitz et al., 2013). Yet, how important are political views outside of the U.S.

context? Although political ideology has also shown to play some role in driving concern

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in many European countries (e.g., McCright, Dunlap, & Marquart-Pyatt, 2016; van der

Linden, 2015A), much less is known about the importance of political beliefs in shaping risk

perception in the rest of the world (Lee et al., 2015).

Another relatively stable finding in the risk perception literature is known as the “white-

male” effect (Finucane et al., 2000), which refers to the finding that compared to white

females and ethnic minorities of both genders, white (conservative) males are generally

less concerned about a wide range of risks, including climate change (McCright &

Dunlap, 2011B). Indeed, studies show that females and nonwhites are generally more

worried about climate change than white males (Bord & O’Connor, 1997; Brody et al., 2008;

Hornsey et al., 2016; Leiserowitz, 2006; Malka et al., 2009; McCright, 2010; O’Connor et al.,

1999; van der Linden, 2015A). In fact, political polarization is also less pronounced among

nonwhites (Schuldt & Pearson, 2016). Aside from any cultural differences, racial minorities

are often thought to have higher risk perceptions because of their increased vulnerability

to negative environmental impacts, stress, and hardship (Mohai & Bryant, 1998; Vaughan

& Nordenstam, 1991). Yet, at the same time, the interaction between race and gender is

complicated, as some studies show that levels of concern between nonwhite males and

females are generally similar, which renders any biological explanations for the “white

male” effect rather unlikely (Flynn, Slovic, & Mertz, 1994).

Yet, strong evidence for gender socialization theories has also proven elusive. Competing

theories include the “Institutional Trust Hypothesis,” the “Social Roles” and the “Safety

Concern Hypothesis” (Davidson & Freudenburg, 1996). Whereas the first theory posits that

females are generally less trusting and place less confidence in technology and

institutions, the latter two suggest that social roles, such as nurturing and caregiving,

might lead to higher health and safety concerns among females. Although studies have

found some evidence for the Safety Concern Hypothesis (Davidson & Freudenburg, 1996;

Xiao & McCright, 2012), less evidence is found for the theory that females are less trustful

of institutions or that the performance of different societal roles account for gender

differences (Cutter et al., 1992; Xiao & McCright, 2012, 2013).

In short, although results vary, there is some evidence for a socio-demographic “risk

profile” where typically younger, female, higher educated, politically liberal, and racial

minorities express more concern about climate change. Yet, socio-demographics are often

included in models of risk perception without much theorizing as to what their conceptual

relevance is (Dietz et al., 1998). Much like the growing literature examining the interaction

between gender, race, and ideology, climate risk scholars are advised to constructively

add to the literature by more clearly explicating theoretical motivations to include socio-

demographic factors, as opposed to merely reporting on their “statistical significance” (or

lack thereof).

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Heuristics and Biases

In addition to cognitive, experiential, socio-cultural, and demographic factors, a number

of key heuristics and biases have also shown to influence climate change risk judgments

in predictable ways. Although the phrase “heuristics and biases” has come to have a

rather negative connotation, I should stress here that reliance on evolved cognitive

shortcuts (“heuristics”) can often be adaptive and lead to more accurate judgments than

more “rational” or deliberative processes (Gigerenzer & Brighton, 2009). However, when

there is a clear mismatch between the environment in which such heuristics evolved and

their application in modern (“global”) contexts, this can cause people to misperceive or

underestimate the risk of climate change in a number of important ways (Gifford, 2011;

van Vugt et al., 2014). I will review five heuristics and biases here that have arguably

proven most relevant to understanding how people form risks judgments about global

warming (van der Linden, Maibach, & Leiserowitz, 2015).

Optimism Bias, Judgmental Discounting, and Psychological Distance

Humans are optimistic about the future, which is generally a healthy state of mind. It is

often hypothesized that because humans evolved with a unique awareness of their own

mortality, it is adaptive to be unrealistically optimistic about the future (Varki, 2009). At

the same time, however, optimism bias often leads people to systematically overestimate

the likelihood of positive events while underestimating the probability of experiencing

negative life events (Sharot, 2011; Weinstein, 1989). For example, research across nearly 20

nations has revealed that people generally judge environmental risks and the impacts of

climate change to be much more likely and more serious for other people and places than

for themselves (Gifford et al., 2009; Leiserowitz, 2005; van der Linden, 2015A). Part of this

optimism stems from the fact that people tend to heavily discount uncertain future risks

(e.g., climate change impacts) a process known as “intertemporal discounting” (Berns,

Laibson, & Loewenstein, 2007). To some extent, temporal discounting is a natural by-

product of the way in which human psychology evolved; day to day concerns often take

precedent over planning for the future (van Vugt et al., 2014). Accordingly, people

mentally construe future risks differently from those in the present (Trope & Liberman,

2010), particularly as temporal distance increases, mental representations of risks tend to

become less concrete and increasingly abstract. This process is generally referred to as

the “psychological distance” of climate change (Spence, Poortinga, & Pidgeon, 2012). In

other words, people often underestimate the extent to which climate change is a serious

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personal risk, believing it is more likely to happen in the distant future to other people in

other places.

The Local Warming Effect

It is difficult for people to detect global environmental change on a purely perceptual or

sensory level (Pawlik, 1991). Accordingly, for everyday survival, it made good sense for

humans to rely on daily and local weather patterns. Yet, the use of variation in local

weather as a heuristic for climate change is a form of “attribution-substitution,” that is,

individuals rely on simple available information, such as daily temperature, to make

judgments about a more complex and less accessible phenomenon, such as global

warming (Zaval et al., 2014). Accordingly, much research has shown that people are more

concerned about global warming on hot days than on cold days and when exposed to so-

called “heat primes” (Joireman et al., 2010; Lewandowski, Ciarocco, & Gately, 2012; Li,

Johnson, & Zaval, 2011; Risen & Critcher, 2011; Zaval et al., 2014; Schuldt & Roh, 2014). The

problem is that due to the high variation in short-term weather, the local warming

heuristic is an unstable inference tool for forming risk judgments about global warming,

with less concern on cold days and more concern on warmer days. Importantly, recent

research has indicated that the local warming effect may be eliminated by prompting

people to think about trends rather than current or ambient temperature (Druckman,

2015).

The Consensus-Heuristic: Perceived Scientific Agreement

Consensus describes the collective judgment of a group of individuals, such as experts.

People tend to rely on consensus cues when making judgments about social and political

issues (Mutz, 1998; Panagopoulos & Harrison, 2016; van der Linden, Clarke, & Maibach,

2015; van der Linden et al., 2017). In fact, in a complex and uncertain world, relying on

consensus cues is often adaptive because it reduces the cost of individual learning by

harnessing the “wisdom of the crowd” (Surowiecki, 2004), which is most pronounced

among experts, such as climate scientists (Maibach & van der Linden, 2016). Indeed, in

contrast to relying on the opinion of a single expert, people generally prefer to take cues

from the combined judgment of multiple experts (Mannes, Soll, & Larrick, 2014).

Accordingly, in light of the strong scientific consensus on human-caused climate change

(Cook et al., 2016), a growing body of research has found that the public’s perception of

the degree of scientific consensus acts as a so-called “gateway cognition”: influencing

“key” beliefs about climate change, including concern about global warming (Ding et al.,

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2011; Hornsey et al., 2016; Malka, Krosnick, & Langer, 2009; McCright et al., 2013; van der

Linden et al., 2015). Moreover, while widespread public misperceptions of the degree of

scientific consensus dampen concern about global warming, recent research has found

that conveying the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change can increase

acceptance of and concern about climate change across the ideological spectrum (e.g.,

Lewandowsky et al., 2013; van der Linden et al., 2015, 2017).

System Justification and Motivated Science Denial

Although people are often biased in favor of the status quo, system justification theory

suggests that some people will not only defend and justify the status quo but also adopt

motivated perceptions to view the current system as stable, fair, just, and legitimate even

when the system may be disadvantageous to others (Jost & Hunyady, 2005). Systematic

justification is distinct from, but related to, free-market ideologies and political

conservatism (Jost et al., 2003). Because global warming and associated mitigation policies

strongly threaten the status quo, much research, particularly in the United States, has

shown that system justification, strong endorsement of free-market capitalism, and

conservatism predict motivated cognitions that result in reduced concern and widespread

climate change denial (Dunlap, 2013; Feinberg & Willer, 2010; Feygina, Jost, & Goldsmith,

2010; Heath & Gifford, 2006; Lewandowsky et al., 2013; van der Linden, 2015B).

Finite Pool of Worry

At the end of the day, people can only worry about so many things at the same time. In an

experimental study with Argentine farmers, Hansen et al. (2004) show that increasing

concern for one political risk (e.g., terrorism), typically reduces concern about another

societal risk (e.g., global warming) even although objectively, the nature of the risk has

not changed. Moreover, worry is often a draining emotional process. The cost of worry is

therefore likely cumulative so that the more people worry about an issue, the longer it

takes to regenerate (Marx et al., 2007). Unfortunately, many studies show that in light of

issues such as national security, the economy, health care, and other ecological issues

such as water scarcity, global warming generally remains a low priority for most people,

consistently occupying the lower ranks of the finite “pool of worry” (Leiserowitz, 2007;

Lorenzoni & Pidgeon, 2006; Nisbet & Myers, 2007; Motel, 2014).

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Measuring Public Risk Perception of Climate

Change

Risk perception is a multidimensional construct (Slovic, Fischhoff, & Lichtenstein, 1982)

and accordingly, a wide range of different items have been used to tap into and measure

how the general public perceives the risk of global warming. For example, some studies

have used “perceived seriousness” as an indicator of risk perception, whereas others

have asked how “concerned” the public is in general about the issue, how likely various

climate change impacts are to occur on varying timescales, how much people personally

“worry” about climate change while still others use a combination of all or some of these

measures (c.f., Akerlof et al., 2013; Brody et al., 2008; Ding et al., 2011; Hidalgo & Pisano,

2010; Malka et al., 2009; McCright, 2010; Milfont, 2012; Kellstedt et al., 2008; Leiserowitz, 2006;

Li et al., 2011; O’Connor et al., 1999; Spence et al., 2012; Sundblad et al., 2007; van der Linden,

2015A).

This notable lack of consensus on how to measure and operationalize a complex and

multidimensional construct such as global warming risk perception creates two main

challenges for scholars and practitioners. First, it is difficult to systematically quantify

how differences in risk perception measurement influence the observed relationship

between the various cognitive, experiential, socio-cultural, and demographic factors that

predict concern about climate change. For example, if it were the case that most risk

perception measures are highly correlated with each other (and thus “tap” into the same

latent “risk perception” factor), we would expect that differences in measurement would

not bear much on the relationship between the dependent and independent variables.

However, empirically, this is often not the case, as correlated measures can still

differentially relate to their predictors (Van Liere & Dunlap, 1981). Second, it is unclear

how different conceptualizations of concern subsequently relate to behavioral responses,

such as support for climate change adaptation and mitigation policies. What is known,

however, is that not all risk perception measures are created equal (van der Linden,

2014B) and indices that combine and tap into the various temporal, spatial, cognitive, and

affective bases of climate change concern are generally more reliable than single-items.

Particularly, because on average, multi-item measures cancel out item-specific variance

and measurement error (Epstein, 1983).

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The Hierarchy of Concern (HoC) Model

To further elaborate on the observation that not all measures of risk perception are

created equal, I have developed a “hierarchy of concern” model that should help inform

future risk perception research (Figure 2). For example, there is a particularly notable

difference between generalized concern for an issue and personal worry. Worry is an

active emotional state that is often closely linked to adaptive behavioral responses aimed

at reducing a particular threat, whereas broad concern is not and can be expressed

without any particular motivational or emotional content (Leiserowitz, 2007; Smith &

Leiserowitz, 2014; van der Linden, 2014B). In fact, a logical “hierarchy of concern” can be

construed using similar reasoning. In short, an individual may think that climate change

(and associated impacts) are likely to occur, but that doesn’t mean that someone also

perceives climate change to be a serious issue. In turn, an individual can perceive climate

change to be a serious issue, but that doesn’t necessarily imply that they are concerned

about it. Finally, although the public may express generalized concern about climate

change, this often does not mean that people also personally worry about the issue or

think it is a high priority (Leiserowitz, 2007; Lorenzoni & Pidgeon, 2006; Nisbet & Myers,

2007; Motel, 2014).

In other words, concern may be a necessary but not sufficient condition for worry and

perceived seriousness and likelihood ratings are in turn components of generalized

concern (Levy & Guttman, 1976). Although public perception may of course not perfectly

abide by such a transitive axiom (likelihood < perceived seriousness < concern <

personal worry), it is a useful heuristic that can help guide researchers conceptualize

measures of risk perception.

Another key finding that

has been neglected in the

literature concerns the

distinction between

“societal” (i.e., other-

regarding) and “personal”-

level risk judgments (Tyler

& Cook, 1984). People are

generally optimistically

biased in the sense that

they believe that global

warming is a serious concern for others, society at-large, and non-human nature, whereas

personal concern and worry is typically much lower (e.g., Leiserowitz, 2005; van der

Click to view larger

Figure 2. “Hierarchy of Concern” (HoC).

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Linden, 2015A). A direct consequence of this conceptual distinction is that risk perception

measures which solely rely on people’s “global” or “societal” level risk judgments are

likely to seriously overestimate public concern. Although this distinction has been

implicitly acknowledged (Bord et al., 2000; Leiserowitz, 2005; Sjöberg, 2012), it has received

scant attention in the literature. In one study, van der Linden (2015A) provides empirical

support for the two-dimensional factor structure of risk perception and further shows

that each dimension may have different antecedents. For example, generalized

knowledge influenced societal but not personal-level risk judgments.

Accordingly, to help guide future research, I have delineated a three-step process of risk

perception measurement (Figure 3). Essentially, any multidimensional risk perception

scale should include both “global” societal-level as well as “personal”-level risk

judgments of global warming in order for researchers to be able to meaningfully compare

and differentiate the two. These two broad dimensions can in turn be broken out by the

different ways in which risk perception can be conceptualized, including likelihood

estimates, measures of perceived seriousness, generalized concern, and personal worry.

Of course, it may not always be feasible for risk scholars to construct multidimensional

risk scales that include a wide range of risk perception measures. For example, opinion

polls typically include single-items asking whether people broadly think that climate

change is a serious issue. Yet, Figure 3 would suggest that the next question to ask is: a

serious issue to whom? Sometimes the purpose of the research might come with practical

restrictions on how many questions or items can be included in a given survey. If the goal

of the research is to describe public opinion, then perceived seriousness or generalized

concern may both be appropriate measures. However, if the goal of the research is to

understand how concern about climate change relates to behavior or policy-support, then

personal worry might be a better indicator to use (e.g., Smith & Leiserowitz, 2014).

Similarly, if researchers only wish to tap into cognitive dimensions of risk, then perceived

“likelihood” is probably a better measure to use than personal “worry.” Nonetheless,

single-item measures are now generally discouraged (Epstein, 1983; Roser-Renouf &

Nisbet, 2008) and more careful consideration of personal vs. other-regarding risk

judgments, the inclusion of multiple items, and how they map onto specific research

questions will likely help improve and standardize future risk perception research.

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Risk Perception, Behavior Change, and

Support for Adaptation and Mitigation Policies

Although people are generally aware of and broadly concerned about the issue of climate

change, scholars have repeatedly noted that deeper behavioral engagement is often still

lacking (e.g., Whitmarsh, Lorenzoni, & O’Neill, 2012; van der Linden, 2014B). Yet, in

contrast to the rich literature on pro-environmental attitudes and behavior, much less is

known about the relationship between public concern about climate change and people’s

intentions and behaviors to address the issue. Having said this, evidence has increased

over the last decade, revealing a clear but inconsistent link between different measures

of climate change concern on one hand, and individual behaviors and support for

adaptation and mitigation policies, on the other. This discrepancy can be explained by

what I will refer to as the “measurement paradox” (Figure 4).

On one hand, studies find that public concern about climate change is broadly related to

adaptation and mitigation measures in consistent and important ways. For example,

Smith and Leiserowitz (2014) find that worry about climate change is one of the strongest

predictors of global warming policy support, such as regulating CO emissions, signing

international treaties, and increasing taxes on gasoline. Similarly, Brody, Grover, and

Vedlitz (2012), O’Connor et al. (1999), and Krosnick et al. (2006) all find that climate change

risk perceptions are predictive of general intentions to implement individual behavior

changes and/or broad policy-support to address the issue. Spence, Poortinga, Butler, and

Pidgeon (2011) also find that concern about climate change influences broad preparedness

to reduce energy use. More generally, there are numerous studies that find robust

Click to view larger

Figure 3. Three-step process of measuring and

operationalizing risk perception.

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evidence for an association between risk perception, broad intentions to address climate

change, and self-reported policy support (e.g., see also Dietz, Dan, & Shwom, 2007; Ding et

al., 2011; Heath & Gifford, 2006; Hidalgo & Pisano, 2010; McCright et al., 2013; Semenza et al.,

2008; van der Linden et al., 2015; Zahran et al., 2006).

Yet, on the other hand, robust evidence for a significant link between risk perceptions of

climate change and specific behavioral actions is much less consistent. For example,

although it is often hypothesized that people might be more willing to implement

adaptation measures due to their greater personal relevance (e.g., Helgeson et al., 2012),

reviews of the role of climate change risk perception in decisions to purchase flooding

insurance (or other protective behaviors) suggest that the relationship is extremely weak

with most studies finding no effect (Bubeck, Botzen, & Aerts, 2012; Kreibich, 2011).

Similarly, in their meta-analysis, Hornsey et al. (2016) find that although climate beliefs

share moderate effect-sizes with broad support for climate policies and behavioral

intentions, the association between climate perceptions and more specific pro-

environmental behaviors is much weaker (about half the magnitude).

Part of the explanation for this discrepancy is rooted in the well-known “gap” between

stated intentions/concern and actual behavior (Sheeran, 2002) but also in an inherent

“measurement paradox.” In particular, there is a notable lack of studies specifically

exploring the role of risk perception in actual adaptation, mitigation, and voting decisions

and behaviors, either self-reported or observed. This is important because of the

conceptual relationship (or lack thereof) that researchers hypothesize between risk

perception and behavior. For example, how are risk perceptions of global warming

conceptually related to climate-friendly behaviors? Whitmarsh (2009) notes that many

specific energy conservation behaviors are generally not performed “out of concern” for

climate change. This makes sense; many personal behaviors, such as running the

dishwasher, changing light bulbs, or even decisions to purchase a fuel-efficient car are

probably driven by considerations specific to those behaviors and contextual

circumstances. For example, in a national study investigating over 20 (low- and high-cost)

climate-friendly behaviors, van der Linden (2016B) developed a causal model of climate

change mitigation behavior known as the Domain-Context-Behavior (DCB) model. The

DCB model reveals that specific actions that help reduce climate change are best

predicted by the specific attitudes, perceptions, beliefs, and barriers that are associated

with performing those behaviors.

The logic of the model is based on the notion of “measurement correspondence” (Ajzen &

Fishbein, 1977)—a principle which suggests that predictors of behavior (e.g., risk

perception) should be operationalized at the same level of specificity as the behavior

being predicted (e.g., purchasing green energy). For example, whether an individual

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purchases green energy is probably best predicted by behavior-specific determinants,

such as that individual’s particular attitude toward or available resources to purchase

green energy. Nonetheless, van der Linden (2016B) shows that more distal predictors

such as people’s concern about climate change still play an important role by shaping a

general orienting intention to help curb climate change, which, when activated by a

specific decision-context, can in turn influence behavior-specific determinants to act

environmentally-friendly (van der Linden, 2016B).

The paradox arises from the fact that because many individual actions are often predicted

by the “power of the situation” (Nisbett & Ross, 1991), one way to try to relate a broad

construct such as risk perception to a specific behavioral measure, is by creating an

aggregate index of behavior and policy-support to help equalize the level of specificity

between the predictor and criterion. Aggregation has the desirable property of canceling

out situation-specific variance between different behaviors (Epstein, 1983; Weigel &

Newman, 1976). This allows researchers to examine common variation between public

concern about climate change and a broad range of behaviors. A drawback of this

approach is that it confounds the differential relationship that each individual behavior or

policy-item in the scale bears in relation to the model’s predictors (Van Liere & Dunlap,

1981; Roser-Renouf & Nisbet, 2008). Although this paradox is unlikely to be resolved, risk

researchers would benefit from being (more) mindful of this trade-off.

Nonetheless, a large body of research has established that public risk perception and

concern do consistently co-vary with “good intentions” and broad-stroke policy support.

Yet, at the same time, much less is known about how and in what ways people’s concern

about climate change drives them to adopt specific behaviors or vote for specific policies

in specific situations. In order to learn more about the complex relationship that public

risk perception plays in driving public engagement with climate change, future research

would benefit from more specific investigations, including examining the role of risk

perception in driving real-world adaptation and mitigation behaviors and decisions. In

addition, in order to not overestimate the relationship between concern about climate

change and behavior, researchers should explore the magnitude of the associations when

controlling for other key motivational factors that can be expected to influence specific

low-carbon behaviors and support for climate policy. As illustrated in Figure 4, this will

also further help evaluate whether risk perception primarily acts as a direct or indirect

driver of climate change response behaviors. Although the study of risk perception is

important in its own right, the field would benefit from becoming more decision-focused

(Arvai, 2014) and to this end, there is much work left to be done in terms of exploring risk-

behavior relations.

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Conclusion

Public risk perceptions of climate change are complex and influenced by a multitude of

cognitive, affective, social, cultural, and socio-demographic factors. Overall, experiential

and socio-cultural factors are most influential in driving public risk perceptions of climate

change with negative affect being one of the strongest determinants. Much of the

evidence comes from Western countries, however, and more research is needed from

other parts of the world. There is a notable inconsistency in the measures used to assess

public risk perception, which makes standardized comparisons difficult. Although public

concern is widespread and most people around the world view climate change as a

serious issue, personal worry is typically much lower. Research also shows that the way

in which people judge the risk of climate change for themselves and others frequently

diverge. Overall, while measures of risk perception have shown to influence self-reported

policy-support and general intentions to change behavior, the link between concern about

climate change and real-world adaptation and mitigation decisions remains less clear.

Suggested Readings

Leiserowitz, A. (2006). Climate change risk perception and policy preferences: The role of

affect, imagery, and values. Climatic Change, 77(1–2), 45–72.

van der Linden, S. (2015). The social-psychological determinants of climate change risk

perceptions: Towards a comprehensive model. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 41,

112–124.

Weber, E. U. (2010). What shapes perceptions of climate change? Wiley Interdisciplinary

Reviews: Climate Change, 1(3), 332–342.

Click to view larger

Figure 4. The conceptual relationship between risk

perception and behavior prediction.

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Notes:

(1.) A notable exception is Kahan et al. (2012). Although it should be mentioned that this

study assessed public science literacy in general rather than domain-specific knowledge

about climate change.

(2.) I should note that the “two systems of reasoning” model is mostly used as a metaphor

(Kahneman, 2011), given that the human brain does not literally have two distinct

“systems”—but since some scholars have proposed an alternative, unified model

(Kruglanski & Gigerenzer, 2011), I feel compelled to highlight this here.

(3.) A notable exception is Smith and Leiserowitz (2012).

(4.) These were derived from Schwartz’s (1992) self-enhancing vs. self-transcending value

clusters.

(5.) A related measure that is somewhat less U.S.-specific but produces similar results is

known as “free-market ideology” (e.g., see Heath & Gifford, 2006).

(6.) This is so because prediction error is a function of both bias and variance. Although

heuristics are necessarily “biased” by ignoring information, they typically capitalize on

having low variance (Gigerenzer & Brighton, 2009).

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(7.) An additional debate revolves around the terms “climate change” vs. “global

warming” where use of the latter may elicit more public concern than the former (c.f.,

Schuldt, Konrath, & Schwarz, 2011; Whitmarsh, 2008b).

(8.) A “healthy” amount of worry is different from the experience of fear. Fear can often

result in so-called “amygdala hijack” (Goleman, 2006), which can interfere with risk

processing and produce maladaptive behavioral responses.

(9.) Of course, similar to criticisms of Maslow’s (1943) “hierarchy of needs,” it is possible

that knowing what the likely impacts of climate change are (bottom) can directly lead to

worry (top) about the issue as well.

(10.) The model is actually drawn in reverse order for conceptual clarity, in a modeling

sense, the societal and personal level variables would be latent factors with the four risk

perception items each being indicators. The two broad risk perception dimensions would

in turn be components of the latent multidimensional risk perception scale.

(11.) To the extent that this is due to differences in measurement, there is some evidence

to suggest that when risk perception is operationalized as personal worry, it bears a

stronger relationship to behavioral measures (Bubeck et al., 2012; Smith & Leiserowitz,

2014).

(12.) Notable exceptions include Semenza et al. (2008) and van der Linden (2016b).

(13.) In the health domain, the link between threat perception and behavior tends to be

more direct, because people are often motivated to “protect” themselves from visceral

health risks (e.g., see Floyd, Prentice-Dunn, & Rogers, 2000).

(14.) Climate beliefs and risk perception also tend to correlate less strongly with more

high-cost behaviors, as these are typically more difficult to implement for people due to

economic and structural barriers (van der Linden, 2016b).

Sander van der Linden

Princeton University

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Understanding divergent perceptions of ethnic groups to climate change in mountainous regions home to multi-ethnic cultures and the factors influencing these perceptions is crucial for policymakers to predict the trending impacts of climate change and make long-term decisions. Based on the case of Southwest China, 1216 households were interviewed by questionnaire surveys to gain insight into the perceptions of local people on the dynamic evolution characteristics of climate events in the uplands of Yunnan, China, which is an area home to rich ethnic diversity, and also to determine the factors that influence these perceptions. Results indicated that climate events have now become important events for farmers’ livelihoods, ranking only after family diseases and livestock diseases. Drought, long-term drought, and erratic rainfall are the three kinds of climatic events with the most significant increase in frequency and severity in mountainous areas. Farmers’ perceptions on whether drought, long-term drought, and erratic rainfall occurred 10 years ago as well as changes in frequency and severity are significantly influenced by characteristics of respondents, ethnic culture, geographical environment of farmer residences, farmland characteristics, and sources of livelihood. Ultimately, taking ethnic differences into consideration for long-term planning will be an important part of the local response to climate change in the future.

How the public understands and reacts to the term “climate anxiety”

Article

Full-text available

May 2024
J ENVIRON PSYCHOL

The term climate anxiety has increasingly appeared in the academic literature and popular discourse since 2019, typically when discussing young people's negative emotional responses to climate change. This paper reports results from a nationally representative survey of the Norwegian public (N = 2040) that investigated whether people respond differently to descriptions of young people “having climate anxiety”, compared with being “concerned” or “worried” about climate change. Results from the survey experiment showed stronger support for politicians taking young people's climate concern or climate worry into consideration when designing new climate policy as compared with young people's climate anxiety. Analyses of an open-ended question asking what people think of when they hear or read the term “climate anxiety” showed that most respondents (52%) provided neutral descriptions (e.g., worry about climate change impacts), 27% viewed climate anxiety as unfounded, irrational, or excessive, and equal proportions of respondents critiqued the term specifically for contributing to such negative associations (6%) or referred to climate anxiety as a reasonable and rational reaction (6%). These findings indicate that among some audiences, using the term climate anxiety may provoke reactance and be perceived as distracting from political actions to mitigate climate change. Our results give important insights into the potential consequences of the terms we use when reporting on climate distress.

Wildlife values can inform strategic conservation communication efforts

Article

Full-text available

May 2024
Hum Dimens Wildl

The ways in which people value wildlife, or “wildlife value orientations,” shape attitudes and behaviors and can even predict support for environmental issues. As such, wildlife value orientations can be used strategically to inform communication strategies. We used a national, experimental framing survey (n = 1,998) to investigate how the two most predominant wildlife value orientations in the US – domination and mutualism – affect people’s intentions to engage in conservation behaviors. Results showed that respondents on the mutualistic scale were more likely to express strong intentions to donate, engage in political activity, and adopt simple actions in support of conservation. In mutualistic-oriented respondents, pessimistically framed messages generally increased intentions to donate, but both optimistic and pessimistic-framed messages were likely to backfire and reduce intentions to adopt personal conservation actions. Our findings provide preliminary empirical evidence that wildlife value orientations could guide more effective communication approaches leading to behavior change.

Do climate concerns and worries predict energy preferences? A meta-analysis

Article

Full-text available

May 2024
ENERG POLICY

Public perceptions of energy choices will play a major role in the energy transition. Climate-related emotions, particularly concerns and worries, influence these perceptions, as they signal a heightened awareness of climate risks and greater personal salience of climate change. Here we conduct a series of meta-analyses to estimate whether climate worries and concerns influence energy preferences (k = 233; N = 85,285; 36 countries). Our findings reveal that climate worries and concerns translate into support for renewable energy, particularly solar and wind, and modest opposition to fossil fuels, particularly coal and gas. Climate worries and concerns are not associated with nuclear energy, albeit with a high degree of variance. Socio-demographic moderators, such as gender, education, and political orientation, did not influence these associations, while age and national energy supply attenuated these associations. These results suggest that climate concerns and worries translate into support for renewable energy, but not equal opposition to fossil fuels. More broadly, this meta-analysis underscores the role of climate-related emotions in shaping energy preferences, providing insights into the influence factors of energy policy support, the psychology of climate change, and climate change communication.

How the public engages with global warming: A social representations approach

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2012

The nature of viral altruism and how to make it stick

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2017
Nat. Hum. Behav.

Sander van der Linden

Societal altruism is changing. Increased awareness and use of online social media is providing new ways of inspiring collective action and support for critical societal challenges. What makes some social causes go viral while others never seem to take off?

Inoculating the Public against Misinformation about Climate Change

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2017

Effectively addressing climate change requires significant changes in individual and collective human behavior and decision-making. Yet, in light of the increasing politicization of (climate) science, and the attempts of vested-interest groups to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change through organized “disinformation campaigns,” identifying ways to effectively engage with the public about the issue across the political spectrum has proven difficult. A growing body of research suggests that one promising way to counteract the politicization of science is to convey the high level of normative agreement (“consensus”) among experts about the reality of human-caused climate change. Yet, much prior research examining public opinion dynamics in the context of climate change has done so under conditions with limited external validity. Moreover, no research to date has examined how to protect the public from the spread of influential misinformation about climate change. The current research bridges this divide by exploring how people evaluate and process consensus cues in a polarized information environment. Furthermore, evidence is provided that it is possible to pre-emptively protect (“inoculate”) public attitudes about climate change against real-world misinformation.

Cognition in Emotion: Always, Sometimes, or Never?

Chapter

Full-text available

Jan 2000

This book, a member of the Series in Affective Science, is a unique interdisciplinary sequence of articles on the cognitive neuroscience of emotion by some of the most well-known researchers in the area. It explores what is known about cognitive processes in emotion at the same time it reviews the processes and anatomical structures involved in emotion, determining whether there is something about emotion and its neural substrates that requires they be studied as a separate domain. Divided into four major focal points and presenting research that has been performed in the last decade, this book covers the process of emotion generation, the functions of amygdala, the conscious experience of emotion, and emotion regulation and dysregulation. Collectively, the chapters constitute a broad but selective survey of current knowledge about emotion and the brain, and they all address the close association between cognitive and emotional processes. By bringing together diverse strands of investigation with the aim of documenting current understanding of how emotion is instantiated in the brain, this book will be of use to scientists, researchers, and advanced students of psychology and neuroscience.

The Oxford Handbook of Environmental and Conservation Psychology

Book

Sep 2012

This handbook is the first to comprehensively study the interdependent fields of environmental and conservation psychology. In doing so, it seeks to map the rapidly growing field of conservation psychology and its relationship to environmental psychology. The Oxford Handbook of Environmental and Conservation Psychology includes basic research on environmental perceptions, attitudes, and values; research on specific environments, such as therapeutic settings, schools, and prisons; environmental impacts on human well-being; and ways to promote a more sustainable relationship between people and the natural environment. This handbook presents an extensive review of current research and is a thorough guide to the state of knowledge about a wide range of topics at the intersection of psychology and the physical environment. Beyond this, it provides a better understanding of the relationship between environmental and conservation psychology, and some sense of the directions in which these interdependent areas of study are heading.

Scientists Unanimous on Anthropogenic Global Warming in 2019

Article

May 2020

James Powell

The Nature of Human Values

Article

Jun 1975

The role of feelings in perceived risk

Article

Jan 2012

M.L. Finucane

The affect heuristic

Article

Jan 2002

Why I know but don't believe

Article

Oct 2016

Carter T. Butts

Despite extensive efforts at public science education, polling over the past 30 years has consistently shown that about 40 to 45% of Americans believe that humans were supernaturally created in the past 10,000 years ( 1 ). A natural interpretation of this finding is that U.S. science education is failing to reach nearly half of the population, and that widespread belief in recent human origins reflects basic scientific illiteracy. However, the reality is more complex ( 2 ): Many of those who reject evolutionary theory are aware of the scientific consensus on the subject, and such rejection is not always associated with low scientific literacy. Similar results have been found for beliefs regarding anthropogenic climate change ( 3 ). On page 321 of this issue, Friedkin et al. ( 4 ) provide a key step toward understanding this phenomenon by introducing a simple family of models for social influence among individuals with multiple, interdependent beliefs.

Determinants and Measurement of Climate Change Risk Perception, Worry, and Concern.

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