How Psychological Distance shapes Americans’ Climate Change Preferences: a Conjoint Analysis

Abstract: How does the psychological distance of natural disasters influence climate attitudes? Existing work that apply construal level theory (CLT) to study climate perceptions report mixed effects. We argue that prior experimental evidence mostly do not test distance dimensions independently despite it being a multidimensional theory comprising social, spatial, temporal, and probabilistic distance. We contribute a systematic test of the effects of psychological distance on climate attitudes by independently manipulating each distance dimension via a conjoint experiment about disasters. From our sample of 700 Republicans, we find that more severe and socially proximate natural disasters that affect one’s ingroup consistently increase pro-climate attitudes. However, spatial, temporal, and probabilistic distance generally do not have a significant effect. Our findings suggest that psychological distance dimensions can exert independent effects on climate attitudes. In the case of Republicans, social proximity matters – highlighting the impacts of climate on social ingroups can warm up Republicans’ attitudes on climate change by $2-5$ percentage points. Our study speaks to CLT by showing its multidimensionality and the out-sized role of social distance in polarized contexts.

Keywords: Political Psychology, Climate Change, Construal Level Theory, Polarization, Public Opinion, Survey Experiments, Social Identity, Republicans