2025/01/01 by Nadia Said, Vivien Wölfl · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Environmental Science · Arts and Humanities · #Climate Change Communication and Perception #Environmental Education and Sustainability #Media Influence and Health
paper · pdf · doi:10.1177/00139165251315576
Currently, news is dominated by the negative impacts of climate change rather than by solutions. Based on previous research, we propose that the standard way of reporting (problem-focused) leads to learned helplessness and decreases motivation to engage in climate action. On the other hand, using constructive narratives (solution-focused) should decrease helplessness and increase motivation to engage in climate action. We thus conducted an experiment with N = 1,359 participants (quota-based sample of the German population). Results showed that reading constructive narratives significantly decreased participants’ helplessness ratings. On the other hand, standard narratives increased climate change attitudes. Furthermore, mediation analysis hinted toward a relationship between a decrease in helplessness and higher motivation to act. As constructive narratives effectively reduced helplessness and reduced helplessness, in turn, was related to higher motivation to act, they could support climate change mitigation by increasing climate action and thereby become a powerful tool within climate change communication.