The social psychology of climate change On the relationship between personal experience , affect and risk perception : The case of climate change

Examining the conceptual relationship between personal experience, affect, and risk perception is crucial in improving our understanding of how emotional and cognitive process mechanisms shape public perceptions of climate change. This study is the first to investigate the interrelated nature of these variables by contrasting three prominent social-psychological theories. In the first model, affect is viewed as a fast and associative information processing heuristic that guides perceptions of risk. In the second model, affect is seen as flowing from cognitive appraisals (i.e., affect is thought of as a post-cognitive process). Lastly, a third, dual-process model is advanced that integrates aspects from both theoretical perspectives. Four structural equation models were tested on a national sample (N=808) of British respondents. Results initially provide support for the “cognitive”model, where personal experience with extreme weather is best conceptualized as a predictor of climate change risk perception and, in turn, risk perception a predictor of affect. Yet, closer examination strongly indicates that at the same time, risk perception and affect reciprocally influence each other in a stable feedback system. It is therefore concluded that both theoretical claims are valid and that a dual-process perspective provides a superior fit to the data. Implications for theory and risk communication are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. A “risk” is not something that exists “out there”, independent of our minds and culture (Slovic, 1992, p. 119). Indeed, unlike a physical threat or danger, the human notion of risk is a mental construct (Sjöberg, 1979), it cannot be sensed—it is only perceived (Fischhoff, Slovic, & Lichtenstein, 1983). Climate change is mostly a statistical concept, referring to the average long-term variability in the earth’s climate (Solomon et al., 2007), and as such, it cannot be experienced directly (Swim et al., 2011). Compared with many other hazards, the threat of climate change is therefore relatively unique: not only because of its scope and breadth (Breakwell, 2010) but also in the sense that it is not directly “situated” in our daily environment (Helgeson, van der Linden, & Chabay, 2012). Nevertheless, an increasing amount of research has shown that people can (to some extent) accurately detect changes in their local climate and relate this perceptual experience to climate change (e.g., Akerlof, Maibach, Fitzgerald, Cedeno, & Neuman, 2013; Howe et al., 2013; Joireman, Truelove, & Duell, 2010). Moreover, the rising incidence rate of extreme weather events is now increasingly being associated with climate change (Coumou & Rahmstorf, 2012). In fact, a number of studies have indicated that personal experience with extreme weather events is a significant predictor of climate change risk perceptions (e.g., Akerlof et al., 2013; Brody, Zahran, Vedlitz, & *Correspondence to: Sander van der Linden, Yale Project on Climate Change Co 195 Prospect Street (Sage Hall), New Haven, CT 06511, USA. E-mail: sander.vanderlinden@yale.edu Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Grover, 2008; Krosnick, Holbrook, Lowe, & Visser, 2006; Spence, Poortinga, Butler, & Pidgeon, 2011). Personal experience also plays a key role in affective processing, as affective responses are essentially formed through learning and experience (Damasio, 1994). An “affective” response is usually defined as a fast, associative, and automatic reaction that guides information processing and judgment (Zajonc, 1980). It is often described as a faint whisper of emotion, defined specifically as a positive (like) or negative (dislike) evaluative feeling toward a stimulus that can occur both consciously and unconsciously (Slovic, Finucane, Peters, & MacGregor, 2004). Risk perception often concerns future events (Sjöberg, 2000) and because affective evaluations of future risks largely depend on the vividness with which negative consequences can be represented mentally (Damasio, 1994;Weber, 2006), it logically follows that personal experience with the impacts of climate change and affective processing are closely interrelated (Marx et al., 2007). However, it is not only direct personal experience and affective processing that go hand in hand. In fact, it is often proposed that any perception (including risk) inevitably contains some affect (Zajonc, 1980). Indeed, negative affect has shown to be an important predictor of climate change risk perceptions (e.g., Leiserowitz, 2006; Sundblad, Biel, & Gärling, 2007). mmunication, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, Received 6 October 2013, Accepted 10 February 2014 Personal experience, affect and risk perception 431 Taken together, these research findings raise a number of important and unresolved questions about the relationship between personal experience, affect, and risk perception: does personal experience with extreme weather predict affective judgments? And in turn, do these affective judgments guide public risk perceptions of climate change? Or does personal experience predict risk perception, and in turn, does risk perception predict affect? Alternatively, is it possible that personal experience predicts risk perception and that risk perception and affect simultaneously and reciprocally influence each other? In short, past research has failed to address the cognitionemotion dilemma in the context of climate change. Doing so is important because more effective public engagement with climate change necessitates risk communication strategies that can better take into account the way in which cognitive and experiential processes shape and influence public perceptions of climate change (Marx et al., 2007). As I will illustrate in the next section, the conceptual relationship between personal experience, affect, and risk perceptions of climate change can be represented within the frame of three competing socialpsychological theories.