How Affinity with Places Affects the Indirect Experience of Climate Extreme Weather Events

When media talk about climate change, they often report on extreme weather in places around the world. One factor that may explain perceptions and reactions to such reports is people’s relationships with the 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 employ a three-condition between-participants experiment to test whether place affinity helps explain reactions to news reports. [N] participants were either shown one of two reports on extreme flooding events in high-affinity and low-affinity countries or a control (general article on climate change and flooding). Reading about extreme weather in a high-affinity place led to [stronger [DVs] /stronger [DV] but no [DV]/did not lead to stronger [DVs]] than in a low-affinity place. [Either treatment condition/high-affinity treatment/low-affinity treatment/neither treatment] was more effective in increasing [DV[s]] than the control condition. We also analysed participants’ open responses and found evidence of [type[s] of] emotion-regulation strategies employed when reading the news articles. 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.

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.