2026/02/03 by Afrooz Mosallaei, Laura Thomas‐Walters, Matthew H. Goldberg +2 · 1 voice · 1 citation
Environmental Science · Medicine · #Climate Change and Health Impacts #Extreme heat #Field (mathematics) #Heat flow #Heat wave #Reflection (computer programming) #Thermal Regulation in Medicine #Thermoregulation and physiological responses #Work (physics)
paper · doi:10.1080/17524032.2026.2623479
published in Environmental Communication, 1-19 (Taylor & Francis)
openalex publication_date 2026/02/03 · openalex created_date 2026/02/04 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/27
As climate change intensifies, extreme heat events are becoming more frequent and severe, posing growing risks to human health, ecosystems, and infrastructure. In a large-scale survey experiment (N = 3,960 U.S. adults) we examine how the emotional valence of imagery – negative, neutral, or positive – in social media-based news about heat waves influences worry about heat waves, beliefs about climate change’s role in extreme heat, and willingness to share information about heat waves. Results show that identical messages accompanied by either negative or neutral imagery increased worry about heatwaves and strengthened beliefs that climate change is exacerbating heat waves, whereas the same messages accompanied by positive imagery did not. The influence of different images varied within each emotional valence category, highlighting the importance of stimulus sampling. These findings underscore the importance of strategic visual framing in climate communication, especially in multimodal, digital contexts.