Undesirable effects of threatening climate change information: a psychological perspective

Environmental campaigns and policy makers often try to promote pro-environmental behavior by giving threatening information about the devastating consequences of climate change. However, according to the General model of... [ view full abstract ]

Environmental campaigns and policy makers often try to promote pro-environmental behavior by giving threatening information about the devastating consequences of climate change. However, according to the General model of threat and defense (Jonas et al., 2014), psychological threats initially lead to anxiety, and a motivation to overcome these negative states by engaging in approach-related behavior. That behavior can either be directly related to the problem (i,e, pro-environmental), or symbolic, with no connection to climate change at all (e.g. ethnocentrism). We present research focusing on peoples’ response after a confrontation with information about climate change. In different experiments (N=122; 243) we tested the impact a climate change threat (=experimental group) versus neutral information (=control threat) on threat reactions (direct and symbolic response) using questionnaires. Reading threatening climate change information did either have no impact on pro-environmental behavior intention (Uhl et al., 2016) or even reduced it (i.e. direct response; Uhl et al., 2017). Only for people with a high environmental self-identity the climate change facts served as a boost. Compared to environmental friendly individuals who read the neutral information they had a higher willingness to engage in climate-friendly behavior (Uhl et al., 2016). However, the climate change threat mainly resulted in undesirable side-effects. Both, high and low environmental friendly individuals displayed symbolic responses after reading the threatening information (i.e. higher level of ethnocentrism, derogation of outgroups). For that reason, we recommend a careful usage of threatening facts in the domain of climate change communication. We will discuss theoretical and practical implications for optimizing international climate change communication.