How Affinity With Places Affects the Indirect Experience of Climate Extreme Weather Events
When news media talk about climate change, they often report on extreme weather in places around the world. One factor that may explain perceptions of such reports and reactions to them is people’s relationships with affected places. We test a framework of place affinity, as indicated...
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
PsychOpen GOLD/ Leibniz Institute for Psychology
2025-02-01
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| Series: | Global Environmental Psychology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.5964/gep.10749 |
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| Summary: | When news media talk about climate change, they often report on extreme weather
in places around the world. One factor that may explain perceptions of such
reports and reactions to them is people’s relationships with affected places. We
test a framework of place affinity, as indicated by several place beliefs, to
describe these people-place relationships. Based on previous research and two
pilot studies, we employed a three-condition between-participants experiment to
test whether place affinity helps explain reactions to news reports.
Participants (N = 972) were either shown one of two reports on
extreme flooding events in high-affinity and low-affinity countries or a general
article on climate change and flooding (control condition). Reading about
extreme weather in a high-affinity place invoked stronger emotional reactions
than for other conditions. There were no differences in risk perception, policy
support or behaviour between conditions. Participants’ open responses to news
articles provided evidence of emotion-focused, problem-focused and
meaning-focused strategies, as well as an absence of emotion-regulation. Our
study thus contributes to the literature by testing our theoretical framework of
place affinity and by investigating factors shaping the effectiveness of climate
coverage. |
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| ISSN: | 2750-6630 |