Abstract
Dialectical thinking refers to a constellation of beliefs that consist of expectation of change, tolerance of contradiction, and holism. The current research explored whether dialectical thinking would affect people’s anticipation of climate change, which has been propagated globally. Study 1 compared the responses between Chinese participants, representing people from cultures that promote dialectical thinking, and North American participants, representing people from cultures that promote linear thinking. The results showed that Chinese participants demonstrated a stronger non-linear pattern regarding the anticipation of climate change as compared with American participants, in which Chinese participants were more likely to anticipate a stable trend but less likely to anticipate an increasing trend for global warming. Study 2 with a manipulation of dialectical and linear thinking was conducted and provided some generally supportive evidence for the causal relation between dialectical beliefs and the anticipation of climate change. Implications for cross-cultural environmental research and international climate change education programs were discussed.
Highlights
Climate change has been treated as one important topic on the global agenda in the contemporary era (Dunlap et al, 2000)
The results showed that Chinese participants were more likely to anticipate a non-linear trend, i.e., a trend differing from the current trend, relative to American participants
The majority perceived future climate change to be in an increasing trend
Summary
Climate change has been treated as one important topic on the global agenda in the contemporary era (Dunlap et al, 2000). One reason that causes inaction for this environmental crisis is that people feel uncertain whether climate change occurs and continues (Ecklund et al, 2017). The perception of climate change can be attributed to some individual characteristics, such as religious ideology (e.g., Smith and Leiserowitz, 2013), political ideology (e.g., Davidson and Haan, 2012), and confidence in science (Ecklund et al, 2017). Individuals’ perception of climate change can be likely to be affected by socio-ecological contexts, which are found to substantially shape how people think, believe, and behave across different domains (e.g., Markus and Kitayama, 1991; Nisbett and Masuda, 2003; Leung and Bond, 2004) including responses to environmental issues (e.g., Eom et al, 2016).
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