Local is not always better: the impact of climate information on values, behavior and policy support
| Autor: | Jonas J. Schoenefeld, Michelle R. McCauley |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
Value (ethics)
Sustainable development Variables 010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences media_common.quotation_subject 05 social sciences Geography Planning and Development Reactance Climate change 050109 social psychology Context (language use) Social value orientations 01 natural sciences Action (philosophy) 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences Psychology Social psychology 0105 earth and related environmental sciences General Environmental Science media_common |
| Popis: | In the current research, we experimentally examined the effect of providing local or global information about the impacts of climate change on individuals’ perceived importance of climate change and on their willingness to take action to address it, including policy support. We examined these relationships in the context of individuals’ general value orientations. Our findings, from 99 US residents, suggest that different kinds of climate information (local, global, or none) interact with values vis-à-vis our dependent variables. Specifically, while self-transcendent values predict perceived importance and pro-environmental behavior across all three information conditions, the effect on policy support is less clear. Furthermore, we detected a “reactance effect” where individuals with self-enhancing values who read local information thought that climate change was less important and were less willing to engage in pro-environmental behavior and support policy than self-enhancing individuals in the other information conditions. These results suggest that policy makers and public communicators may want to be cognizant of their audience’s general value orientation. Local information may not only be ineffective but may also prove counterproductive with individuals whose value orientations are more self-enhancing than self-transcendent. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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