How Affinity with Places Affects the Indirect Experience of 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 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.

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.