The Effect of Motivated Messages on Climate Change Attitudes

Climate change presents a serious threat to humanity and its impacts will be felt for generations to come. As global temperatures continue to increase the need to act on climate change becomes more urgent. Efforts to combat climate change face a major obstacle: deniers and skeptics. This study uses a survey experiment to better understand how motivated reasoning can bolster the persuasive effects of targeted climate change messaging. The results of this survey suggest that social norms play a significant role in attitude formation and behavioral intentions. Norms seem to be more important than values and information. Survey results also show that the path from believing climate change is a real phenomenon to supporting it.