Dissertation
TOO FAR TO CARE OR TOO CLOSE TO ACT ?: AN INVESTIGATION OF CONSTRUAL LEVEL THEORY AND EMOTIONS IN UNDERSTANDING CLIMATE CHANGE ENGAGEMENT
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
01/2019
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/116799
Abstract
Despite constant effort from scientists and researchers addressing the issue of climate change and the importance of policies and collective actions against it, a significant number of people in the United States remain skeptical about the existence of climate change and are unconcerned with this matter. Even among people who believe in climate change, a large number of them do not expect the impacts to occur until the distant future. Recent research has applied Construal Level Theory and suggested underlying the proximal impacts of climate change to encourage the public to take steps to address this important issue. Within this area of research, the majority of studies focused on the concept of psychological distance, which addresses the cognitive separation (i.e., close or remote) of individuals themselves and other objects and events. However, few studies have examined the concept of construal level. Similarly, few studies have connected the extensive work on emotions with CLT.
The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the relationship between psychological distance, emotions, and climate engagement. In particular, this project first maps emotions onto construal levels. It also focuses on how temporal and social distance separately and combine to trigger emotions. In addition, this project also looks at emotions serving as mediators in the process of engaging the public in pro-environmental behaviors.
To examine these ideas, I conducted two experiments (two datasets per study). Results of Study 1 revealed that seeing psychologically close cues increased fear and anger, while seeing remote cues triggered guilt and anxiety. Results also showed mediation effects through anger and guilt. Specifically, anger triggered by close cues increased people’s intention to engage in concrete pro-environmental behaviors. By contrast, when guilt was elicited from remote messages, it led people to practice abstract climate behaviors. Results of Study 2 showed there are interactions between temporal and social distance on guilt and anxiety. These results also show that the combination of temporally and socially remote cues triggered guilt, which, in turn, increased people’s intention in climate engagement. The dissertation concludes with a summary and discussion of results and provides implications and directions for future research.
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Details
- Title
- TOO FAR TO CARE OR TOO CLOSE TO ACT ?: AN INVESTIGATION OF CONSTRUAL LEVEL THEORY AND EMOTIONS IN UNDERSTANDING CLIMATE CHANGE ENGAGEMENT
- Creators
- Yanni Ma
- Contributors
- Jay Hmielowski (Advisor)Myiah Hutchens (Committee Member)Amanda Boyd (Committee Member)Marc Evans (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Edward R. Murrow College of Communication
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 173
- Identifiers
- 99900581416201842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation