Fear vs Hope Climate Messaging: Effects on Risk Perception Across Age Groups

Given that public understanding of climate change is often shaped by media communication (especially social media), efficient climate communication is critical for shaping emotional responses and perceptions of climate change severity and risk. Unfortunately, public concern remains low for climate concern, and people vary widely in how threatening, urgent, and personally relevant they perceive climate risks to be. Research on climate communication has increasingly implemented emotional messaging framing, especially through fear and hope appeals to increase empowerment, well-being and to motivate individuals towards action. Australia has especially felt the consequences of climate change, and Australian youth especially report high levels of stress and concern about their futures. Emotional appeals may thus not affect age groups differently. This study examines how emotion-framed climate messages shape climate perceptions, and whether these effects differ between Australian young adults and older adults. The purpose of this study is to experimentally test whether exposure to fear-based framed vs hope-based framed climate messages (compared to a neutral/control) influences risk perception, and whether this is moderated by age. Clicking behavior as a form of climate action is also analyzed exploratory. Based on theory and previous research, it is expected that fear-based messages will increase risk perception to a higher degree compared to hope-based and neutral messages because fearful messages increase perceived severity and personal relevance. Age differences are expected, as younger individuals are expected to report higher perceptions of risk related to climate change, given that it affects their future prospects and that they often perceive climate change as more personally relevant.