https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6902-6132
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Abstract
Sharing personal stories of how climate change is already harming people is a promising communication strategy to engage diverse and even skeptical audiences. Using two experiments, we test the effects of a radio story on the climate change beliefs and risk perceptions of political moderates and conservatives. The radio story, which aired on hundreds of stations across the U.S., is a North Carolina sportsman’s personal account of how climate change has already affected the places he loves. Both experiments found positive effects on global warming beliefs and risk perceptions. Additionally, Study 2 found these effects were mediated by emotional reactions of worry and compassion. These studies suggest personal stories can be a persuasive communication strategy.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by authors.
Supplementary Material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed publisher’s website.
Notes
1. It is unlikely that prior exposure could have affected the results, because the average audience of the radio program is about 134,000 (1 in 1,560 American adults), and exposure would be randomly distributed between conditions.
2. Further details about the wording and response categories for all measures in Study 1 and Study 2 are presented in the supplementary materials.
3. The details of these factor analyses and the creation of the composite variables are reported in the supplementary materials.
4. The details of these factor analyses and the creation of the composite variables are reported in the supplementary materials.
5. The supplementary materials report the factor analyses that indicated a unidimensional structure of the three-item compassion scale.
6. Comparisons of effect sizes were performed with z-tests (Paternoster et al., Citation1998). These methods and results are detailed in the supplementary analyses.