Climate Change Imagery : Using mental images of climate change to reduce impact neglect

Despite decades of scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change, global mitigation efforts remain insufficient to curb its escalating impacts on nature and human societies.Effective climate change mitigation requires engagement across multiple levels -from policy and technological innovation, to large-scale shifts in individual behavior.Research over the past decade suggests that one reason individual behavior change has had limited impact is that people often choose actions with low objective mitigation potential.While many individuals engage in pro-environmental actions, these are often low-impact behaviors (low CO₂ reduction), whereas high-impact behaviors (high CO₂ reduction) remain largely unchanged.This thesis operationalizes the limited adoption of highmitigation behaviors as a manifestation of "impact neglect" -a phenomenon shaped by both low carbon numeracy (i.e., limited knowledge about the relative mitigation potential of different actions), as well as psychological and structural barriers associated with high-impact behavioral shifts.This research identified mental imagery as an underexplored intervention within the field of behavioral science for climate change mitigation.Drawing on evidence from research in memory, athletic performance, and clinical interventions, this research proposed that mental imagery may address both facets of impact neglect: by enhancing the learning and retention of objective mitigation potential (i.e., improving carbon numeracy), and by lowering psychological barriers, thereby increasing motivation to engage in high-impact pro-environmental behaviors.The first two papers in this thesis tested the effect of simulated mental imagery on psychological determinants for climate change behaviors.Support was found for a causal relationship between mental imagery of climate change-related risk events (i.e., wildfire), affective valence, and global perceived risk of climate change.Furthermore, combining mental imagery with information about mitigation potential, in a feedback format, lead to a significantly larger increase in pro-environmental intention, when compared to Jag vill också tacka mina doktorandkollegor för ert fina stödoch er tillförlitliga förmåga att dricka vin.Ett särskilt tack till Towe och Anna för mysiga stunder, till Victoria för att du validerat mina neurotiska sidor, till Julia för hjälpsamma samtal, och till Amanda för övning i konsten att ta saker med en nypa salt och för dina fantastiska dansmoves.Ett ytterligare varmt tack går till de två viktigaste männen i mitt liv -min äkta make Martin och min oäkta pudel Claude -för ovillkorlig värme och kärlek.Avslutningsvis vill jag tacka min familj och mina vänner i stort, tack för att ni finns, är underbara -ni bidrar till min motivation på så många sätt.