Psychological distance has long been regarded as a primary obstacle to driving pro-environmental changes. This study seeks to explore narrative attributes that can be strategically harnessed to solve the distal nature of climate change. By adopting a 2 (retrospective vs. prospective temporal perspective) × 2 (first-person vs. third-person narrator perspective) factorial experimental design, the findings suggested that climate change narratives in retrospective and first-person perspectives manifest superiority in reducing psychological distance, with narrative involvement as the explanatory mechanism. In addition, the two forms of narrative involvement, namely transportation and identification, play distinct roles in addressing various types of psychological distance.
AjzenI. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational behavior and human decision processes, 50(2), 179–211.
2.
Bieniek-TobascoA.RimalR. N.McCormickS.HarringtonC. B. (2020). The power of being transported: Efficacy beliefs, risk perceptions, and political affiliation in the context of climate change. Science Communication, 42(6), 776–802. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547020951794
3.
BilandzicH.SukallaF. (2019). The role of fictional film exposure and narrative engagement for personal norms, guilt and intentions to protect the climate. Environmental Communication, 13(8), 1069–1086. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2019.1575259
4.
BrevesP.SchrammH. (2021). Bridging psychological distance: The impact of immersive media on distant and proximal environmental issues. Computers in Human Behavior, 115, 106606. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106606
BudescuD. V.PorH. H.BroomellS. B. (2012). Effective communication of uncertainty in the IPCC reports. Climate Change, 113, 181–200. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0330-3
7.
BushellS.BuissonG. S.WorkmanM.ColleyT. (2017). Strategic narratives in climate change: Towards a unifying narrative to address the action gap on climate change. Energy Research & Social Science, 28, 39–49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2017.04.001
ChattooC. B.FeldmanL. (2017). Storytelling for social change: Leveraging documentary and comedy for public engagement in global poverty. Journal of Communication, 67(5), 678–701. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12318
10.
ChenM.BellR. A. (2022). A meta-analysis of the impact of point of view on narrative processing and persuasion in health messaging. Psychology & Health, 37(5), 545–562.
11.
ChenM.BellR. A.TaylorL. D. (2016). Narrator point of view and persuasion in health narratives: The role of protagonist–reader similarity, identification, and self-referencing. Journal of Health Communication, 21(8), 908–918.
12.
ChenM.BellR. A.TaylorL. D. (2017). Persuasive effects of point of view, protagonist competence, and similarity in a health narrative about type 2 diabetes. Journal of Health Communication, 22(8), 702–712.
13.
ChuH.YangJ. Z. (2019). Emotion and the psychological distance of climate change. Science Communication, 41(6), 761–789. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547019889637
14.
CohenJ. (2001). Defining identification: A theoretical look at the identification of audiences with media characters. Mass Communication and Society, 4(3), 245–264. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327825mcs0403_01
15.
CooperK. E.NisbetE. C. (2016). Green narratives: How affective responses to media messages influence risk perceptions and policy preferences about environmental hazards. Science Communication, 38(5), 626–654. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547016666843
DahlstromM. F. (2014). Using narratives and storytelling to communicate science with nonexpert audiences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(Suppl. 4), 13614–13620. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1320645111
18.
DahlstromM. F.RosenthalS. (2018). Third-person perception of science narratives: The case of climate change denial. Science Communication, 40(3), 340–365. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547018766556
19.
DawsonP.SykesC. (2019). Concepts of time and temporality in the storytelling and sensemaking literatures: A review and critique. International Journal of Management Reviews, 21(1), 97–114. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12178
20.
DegelingD.KoolenR. (2022). Communicating climate change to a local but diverse audience: On the positive impact of locality framing. Environmental Communication, 16(2), 243–261. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2021.1998177
21.
DessartL. (2018). Do ads that tell a story always perform better? The role of character identification and character type in storytelling ads. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 35(2), 289–304. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2017.12.009
22.
DillardA. J.FerrerR. A.WelchJ. D. (2018). Associations between narrative transportation, risk perception and behaviour intentions following narrative messages about skin cancer. Psychology & Health, 33(5), 573–593.
23.
DillonS.CraigC. (2023). Storylistening: How narrative evidence can improve public reasoning about climate change. WIREs Climate Change, 14(2), Article e812. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.812
24.
DuanR.ZwickleA.TakahashiB. (2022). Refining the application of construal level theory: Egocentric and nonegocentric psychological distances in climate change visual communication. Environmental Communication, 16(1), 92–107. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2021.1964999
25.
FiedlerK.JungJ.WänkeM.AlexopoulosT. (2012). On the relations between distinct aspects of psychological distance: An ecological basis of construal-level theory. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(5), 1014–1021.
26.
FisherW. R. (1984). Narration as a human communication paradigm: The case of public moral argument. Communication Monographs, 51(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637758409390180
27.
FoxJ.McKnightJ.SunY.MaungD.CrawfisR. (2020). Using a serious game to communicate risk and minimize psychological distance regarding environmental pollution. Telematics and Informatics, 46, 101320. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2019.101320
28.
FujitaK. F.HendersonM. D.EngJ.TropeY.LibermanN. (2006). Spatial distance and mental construal of social events. Psychological Science, 17, 278–282.
GiffordR. (2011). The dragons of inaction: Psychological barriers that limit climate change mitigation and adaptation. American Psychologist, 66(4), 290–302. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0023566
31.
GreenM. C.BrockT. C. (2000). The role of transportation in the persuasiveness of public narratives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(5), 701–721. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.79.5.701
32.
GreenM. C.BrockT. C. (2002). In the mind’s eye transportation-imagery model of narrative persuasion. In GreenM. C.StrangeJ. J.BrockT. C. (Eds.), Narrative impact: Social and cognitive foundations (pp. 315–341). Psychology Press.
33.
GuerreroI.IgartuaJ. J. (2017, October). The role of the narrator point of view and the similarity with the protagonist in narratives designed to reduce prejudice towards stigmatized immigrants. In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality (pp. 1–5). Association for Computing Machinery.
34.
GustafsonA.BallewM. T.GoldbergM. H.CutlerM. J.RosenthalS. A.LeiserowitzA. (2020). Personal stories can shift climate change beliefs and risk perceptions: The mediating role of emotion. Communication Reports, 33(3), 121–135. https://doi.org/10.1080/08934215.2020.1799049
35.
HayesA. F. (2018). Partial, conditional, and moderated moderated mediation: Quantification, inference, and interpretation. Communication Monographs, 85(1), 4–40. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637751.2017.1352100
36.
HoekenH.KolthoffM.SandersJ. (2016). Story perspective and character similarity as drivers of identification and narrative persuasion. Human Communication Research, 42(2), 292–311. https://doi.org/10.1111/hcre.12076
37.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2021a). Climate change 2021: The physical science basis (IPCC Sixth Assessment Report). https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/
JonesC.HineD. W.MarksA. D. (2017). The future is now: Reducing psychological distance to increase public engagement with climate change. Risk Analysis, 37(2), 331–341. https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.12601
41.
JonesM. D. (2014). Communicating climate change: Are stories better than “just the facts”?Policy Studies Journal, 42(4), 644–673. https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12072
LeeS. J. (2019). The role of construal level in message effects research: A review and future directions. Communication Theory, 29(3), 319–338. https://doi.org/10.1093/ct/qty030
44.
LeeT. M.MarkowitzE. M.HoweP. D.KoC.-Y.LeiserowitzA. A. (2015). Predictors of public climate change awareness and risk perception around the world. Nature Climate Change, 5, 1014–1020. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2728
LewisN.SznitmanS. R. (2017). You brought it on yourself: The joint effects of message type, stigma, and responsibility attribution on attitudes toward medical cannabis. Journal of Communication, 67(2), 181–202. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12287
LibermanN.TropeY.StephanE. (2007). Psychological distance. In KruglanskiA. W.HigginsE. T. (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (pp. 353–383). Guilford Press.
49.
LiuS.YangJ. Z. (2020). The role of temporal distance perception in narrative vs. non-narrative persuasion related to e-cigarettes. Journal of Health Communication, 25(7), 543–553.
50.
LiuS.YangJ. Z. (2023). Narrative persuasion and psychological distance: Analyzing the effectiveness of distance-framed narratives in communicating ocean plastic pollution. Risk Analysis, 43, 2099–2113.
51.
LorenzoniI.Nicholson-ColeS.WhitmarshL. (2007). Barriers perceived to engaging with climate change among the UK public and their policy implications. Global Environmental Change, 17(3–4), 445–459. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2007.01.004
52.
MaiellaR.La MalvaP.MarchettiD.PomaricoE.Di CrostaA.PalumboR.CetaraL.Di DomenicoA.VerrocchioM. C. (2020). The psychological distance and climate change: A systematic review on the mitigation and adaptation behaviors. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, Article 568899. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.568899
53.
Martinez-CondeS.MacknikS. L. (2017). Finding the plot in science storytelling in hopes of enhancing science communication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(31), 8127–8129. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1711790114
54.
Moyer-GuséE. (2008). Toward a theory of entertainment persuasion: Explaining the persuasive effects of entertainment-education messages. Communication Theory, 18(3), 407–425. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2008.00328.x
55.
MurphyS. T.FrankL. B.ChatterjeeJ. S.Baezconde-GarbanatiL. (2013). Narrative versus nonnarrative: The role of identification, transportation, and emotion in reducing health disparities. Journal of Communication, 63(1), 116–137. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12007
56.
MurphyS. T.FrankL. B.MoranM. B.Patnoe-WoodleyP. (2011). Involved, transported, or emotional? Exploring the determinants of change in knowledge, attitudes, and behavior in entertainment-education. Journal of communication, 61(3), 407–431.
NussbaumS.LibermanN.TropeY. (2006). Predicting the near and distant future. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 135(2), 152–161.
59.
PaschenJ.-A.IsonR. (2014). Narrative research in climate change adaptation—Exploring a complementary paradigm for research and governance. Research Policy, 43(6), 1083–1092. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2013.12.006
60.
PourgivF.SadighiF.KalooraziM. H. N. (2003). The effect of points of view on the readability of short stories. Narrative Inquiry, 13(2), 469–471. https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.13.2.15pou
61.
RhodesN.TooleJ.ArpanL. M. (2016). Persuasion as reinforcement: Strengthening the pro-environmental attitude-behavior relationship through ecotainment programming. Media Psychology, 19(3), 455–478. https://doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2015.1106322
62.
RickardL. N.YangZ. Y.SchuldtJ. P. (2016). Here and now, there and then: How “departure dates” influence climate change engagement. Global Environmental Change, 38, 97–107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.03.003
63.
RongM. (2023). Climate fiction: A promising way of communicating climate change with the general public. Studies in Social Science & Humanities, 2(2), 21–27.
64.
Schneider-MayersonM.GustafsonA.LeiserowitzA.GoldbergM. H.RosenthalS. A.BallewM. (2023). Environmental literature as persuasion: An experimental test of the effects of reading climate fiction. Environmental Communication, 17(1), 35–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2020.1814377
65.
ShenF.SheerV. C.LiR. (2015). Impact of narratives on persuasion in health communication: A meta-analysis. Journal of Advertising, 44(2), 105–113. https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2015.1018467
66.
SlaterM. D.RounerD. (2002). Entertainment-education and elaboration likelihood: Understanding the processing of narrative persuasion. Communication Theory, 12(2), 173–191. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2002.tb00265.x
67.
SoolsA. M.TrompT.MoorenJ. H. (2015). Mapping letters from the future: Exploring narrative processes of imagining the future. Journal of Health Psychology, 20(3), 350–364. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105314566607
Tal-OrN.CohenJ. (2010). Understanding audience involvement: Conceptualizing and manipulating identification and transportation. Poetics, 38(4), 402–418. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2010.05.004
70.
TropeY.LibermanN. (2010). Construal-level theory of psychological distance. Psychological Review, 117(2), 440–463. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018963
71.
TukachinskyR.TokunagaR. S. (2013). 10 the effects of engagement with entertainment. Annals of the International Communication Association, 37(1), 287–322. https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2013.11679153
72.
Van LaerT.RuyterK. de.WetzelsM. (2014). Antecedents and consequences of narrative transportation: A meta-analysis of the antecedents and consequences of consumers’ narrative transportation. Journal of Consumer Research, 40(5), 797–817. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2033192
73.
WeberE. U. (2006). Experience-based and description-based perceptions of long-term risk: Why global warming does not scare us (yet). Climatic Change, 77(1–2), 103–120. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-006-9060-3
74.
YangJ. Z.RickardL. N.LiuZ.BozeT. (2021). Too close to care? A replication study to re-examine the effect of cued distance on climate change engagement. Environmental Communication, 15(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2020.1777181
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
