IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v17y2020i21p7718-d433167.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Their Economy and Our Health: Communicating Climate Change to the Divided American Public

Author

Listed:
  • Haoran Chu

    (Department of Public Relations, College of Media and Communication, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409, USA)

  • Janet Yang

    (Department of Communication, University at Buffalo, the State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA)

Abstract

Climate change poses severe economic and public health threats to societies around the world. However, little is known about how selectively emphasizing its impacts on different issues and in different locations influence public engagement in climate change mitigation. Utilizing an experimental survey with adult participants, this study investigates the effect of issue framing and distance framing on risk perception and policy support related to climate change. The impacts of political ideology, environmental value, and belief in climate science on message effect are also examined. Based on the results of ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) and OLS (Ordinary Least Squares) regression, we found that compared with the economy frame, the public health frame led to greater polarization in risk perception and policy support between liberals and conservatives, and these relationships were mediated by environmental value and belief in climate science. Similarly, distance framing also increased ideological polarization in risk perception and policy support.

Suggested Citation

  • Haoran Chu & Janet Yang, 2020. "Their Economy and Our Health: Communicating Climate Change to the Divided American Public," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(21), pages 1-17, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:21:p:7718-:d:433167
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/21/7718/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/21/7718/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nada Petrovic & Jaime Madrigano & Lisa Zaval, 2014. "Motivating mitigation: when health matters more than climate change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 126(1), pages 245-254, September.
    2. Charles S. Taber & Milton Lodge, 2006. "Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(3), pages 755-769, July.
    3. James N. Druckman & Mary C. McGrath, 2019. "The evidence for motivated reasoning in climate change preference formation," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 9(2), pages 111-119, February.
    4. Matthew J. Hornsey & Emily A. Harris & Paul G. Bain & Kelly S. Fielding, 2016. "Meta-analyses of the determinants and outcomes of belief in climate change," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 6(6), pages 622-626, June.
    5. Warr, Benjamin & Ayres, Robert & Eisenmenger, Nina & Krausmann, Fridolin & Schandl, Heinz, 2010. "Energy use and economic development: A comparative analysis of useful work supply in Austria, Japan, the United Kingdom and the US during 100Â years of economic growth," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(10), pages 1904-1917, August.
    6. Gollust, S.E. & Lantz, P.M. & Ubel, P.A., 2009. "The polarizing effect of news media messages about the social determinants of health," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 99(12), pages 2160-2167.
    7. Teresa Myers & Matthew Nisbet & Edward Maibach & Anthony Leiserowitz, 2012. "A public health frame arouses hopeful emotions about climate change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 113(3), pages 1105-1112, August.
    8. Alexa Spence & Wouter Poortinga & Nick Pidgeon, 2012. "The Psychological Distance of Climate Change," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(6), pages 957-972, June.
    9. Adrian Brügger & Suraje Dessai & Patrick Devine-Wright & Thomas A. Morton & Nicholas F. Pidgeon, 2015. "Psychological responses to the proximity of climate change," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 5(12), pages 1031-1037, December.
    10. Luciana Carraro & Luigi Castelli & Claudia Macchiella, 2011. "The Automatic Conservative: Ideology-Based Attentional Asymmetries in the Processing of Valenced Information," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(11), pages 1-6, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shane P Singh & Meili Swanson, 2017. "How issue frames shape beliefs about the importance of climate change policy across ideological and partisan groups," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(7), pages 1-14, July.
    2. Anne K. Armstrong & Marianne E. Krasny, 2020. "Tracing Paths from Research to Practice in Climate Change Education," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-21, June.
    3. Trisha R. Shrum, 2021. "The salience of future impacts and the willingness to pay for climate change mitigation: an experiment in intergenerational framing," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 1-20, March.
    4. Haoran Chu & Janet Z. Yang, 2020. "Risk or Efficacy? How Psychological Distance Influences Climate Change Engagement," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(4), pages 758-770, April.
    5. Jialing Huang & Janet Z. Yang & Haoran Chu, 2022. "Framing Climate Change Impacts as Moral Violations: The Pathway of Perceived Message Credibility," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(9), pages 1-19, April.
    6. Mohamed Didi Alaoui & Véronique Cova, 2021. "La distance psychologique comme outil actionnable par les managers," Post-Print hal-03126709, HAL.
    7. Ting Liu & Nick Shryane & Mark Elliot, 2022. "Attitudes to climate change risk: classification of and transitions in the UK population between 2012 and 2020," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-15, December.
    8. Charmaine Mullins-Jaime & Jan K. Wachter, 2022. "Motivating Personal Climate Action through a Safety and Health Risk Management Framework," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-20, December.
    9. Paul M. Lohmann & Andreas Kontoleon, 2023. "Do Flood and Heatwave Experiences Shape Climate Opinion? Causal Evidence from Flooding and Heatwaves in England and Wales," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 86(1), pages 263-304, October.
    10. Michael Carolan, 2020. "Filtering perceptions of climate change and biotechnology: values and views among Colorado farmers and ranchers," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 121-139, March.
    11. Byungdoo Kim & David L. Kay & Jonathon P. Schuldt, 2021. "Will I have to move because of climate change? Perceived likelihood of weather- or climate-related relocation among the US public," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 1-8, March.
    12. Welsch, Heinz, 2021. "How climate-friendly behavior relates to moral identity and identity-protective cognition: Evidence from the European social surveys," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    13. Eric Plutzer & A. Lee Hannah, 2018. "Teaching climate change in middle schools and high schools: investigating STEM education’s deficit model," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 305-317, August.
    14. Samantha K. Stanley & Caroline Ng Tseung-Wong & Zoe Leviston & Iain Walker, 2021. "Acceptance of climate change and climate refugee policy in Australia and New Zealand: The case against political polarisation," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 169(3), pages 1-9, December.
    15. Odou, Philippe & Schill, Marie, 2020. "How anticipated emotions shape behavioral intentions to fight climate change," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 243-253.
    16. Monika Pompeo & Nina Serdarevic, 2021. "Is information enough? The case of Republicans and climate change," Discussion Papers 2021-08, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    17. Gabriele Prati & Iana Tzankova & Cinzia Albanesi & Elvira Cicognani, 2022. "Longitudinal Predictors of Perceived Climate Change Importance and Worry among Italian Youths: A Machine Learning Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-19, November.
    18. Rosalind Pidcock & Kate Heath & Lydia Messling & Susie Wang & Anna Pirani & Sarah Connors & Adam Corner & Christopher Shaw & Melissa Gomis, 2021. "Evaluating effective public engagement: local stories from a global network of IPCC scientists," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 168(3), pages 1-22, October.
    19. D. Liliana González-Hernández & Raúl A. Aguirre-Gamboa & Erik W. Meijles, 2023. "The role of climate change perceptions and sociodemographics on reported mitigation efforts and performance among households in northeastern Mexico," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 1853-1875, February.
    20. Céline Nauges & Sarah Ann Wheeler & Kelly S. Fielding, 2021. "The relationship between country and individual household wealth and climate change concern: the mediating role of control," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(11), pages 16481-16503, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:21:p:7718-:d:433167. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.