Date of Conferral

2021

Degree

Doctor of Psychology (Psy.D.)

School

Psychology

Advisor

Jody Dill

Abstract

As climate and environmental scientists work to address the practical challenges presented by global climate change, researchers examining environmental attitudes have obtained inconsistent outcomes in efforts to increase awareness and engagement with the topic to increase support for proenvironmental policies. Using construal level theory as the central framework, the purpose of this study was to examine whether construal level of long-term consequences of climate change (the dependent variable), assessed indirectly using the Environmental Attitudes Inventory scale, can be reduced by priming an individual to think of a temporally distal but socially proximal target (specifically, a genetic descendant) while engaging in a structured writing task. This task manipulated social and temporal dimensions of psychological distance as independent variables. A 2 x 2 analysis of variance was conducted using data collected from 130 online participants (older than 18 years and U.S. citizens eligible to vote) recruited using promoted posts on social media but did not find statistically significant support for the hypotheses. Low internal consistency estimates for the overall scale and multiple subscales were considered among other confounding factors. These findings suggest new approaches to conducting similar research in the future, which may provide insight and promote positive social change on how to engage individuals in meaningful consideration of how present choices about environmental policy support will affect future generations.

Download

Share

 
COinS