Stories of intentional action mobilise climate policy support\xa0and action intentions

Anandita Sabherwal,Ganga Shreedhar

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-04392-4

Anandita Sabherwal, Ganga Shreedhar

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-04392-4

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Abstract

What makes a climate story effective? We examined if short fiction stories about everyday pro-environmental behaviours motivate climate policy support, and individual and collective climate action in a nationally representative experiment (N = 903 UK adults). The story featuring protagonists driven by pro-environmental intentions (i.e., the intentional environmentalist narrative) increased participants’ support for pro-climate policies and intentions to take both individual and collective pro-environmental actions, more so than did stories featuring protagonists whose pro-environmental behaviours were driven by intentions to gain social status, to protect their health, and a control story. Participants’ stronger feelings of identification with the protagonist partially explained these effects of the intentional environmentalist narrative. Results highlight that narrating intentional, rather than unintentional, pro-environmental action can enhance readers’ climate policy support and intentions to perform pro-environmental action. Therefore, the intentions driving pro-environmental action may have implications for the extent to which observes identify with the actor and take pro-environmental action themselves.

Highlights

What makes a climate story effective? We examined if short fiction stories about everyday proenvironmental behaviours motivate climate policy support, and individual and collective climate action in a nationally representative experiment (N = 903 UK adults)
We investigate if stories featuring commonplace heroes who take the same actions to mitigate climate change but have different intentions—pro-environmental, status-seeking, or even a non-environmental such as health—impact readers’ willingness to support climate policy and take climate action
There were no significant differences in socio-demographic factors across conditions (See SI)

Summary

Introduction

Characters with persistent, intrinsic pro-environmental motivations, i.e., those motivated to take actions with the intention of having a positive environmental impact, and who consistently engage in collective (e.g., rallies, petitions) and lifestyle (e.g., veganism) climate actions, can be perceived as disruptive and r adical[13], or as trying to appear more moral than they are[14]. They may even face do-gooder derogation i.e., their advocacy might end up demotivating others because they are seen as annoying, too moral and unrelatable[15,16]. It is possible that characters whose actions are driven by external factors (rather than intrinsic motivation), for example, someone who takes climate actions under social pressure from their friends, may be seen as more relatable and have a lower chance

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Conclusion