Attribution matters: revisiting the link between extreme weather experience and climate change mitigation responses
Date
2018-11-23Abstract
The literature suggests that extreme weather experiences have potential to increase climate change engagement
by influencing the way people perceive the proximity and implications of climate change. Yet, limited attention
has been directed at investigating how individual differences in the subjective interpretation of extreme weather
events as indications of climate change moderate the link between extreme weather experiences and climate
change attitudes. This article contends that subjective attribution of extreme weather events to climate change is
a necessary condition for extreme weather experiences to be translated into climate change mitigation responses,
and that subjective attribution of extreme weather to climate change is influenced by the psychological and
social contexts in which individuals appraise their experiences with extreme weather. Using survey data gathered
in the aftermath of severe flooding across the UK in winter 2013/2014, personal experience of this flooding
event is shown to only directly predict perceived threat from climate change, and indirectly predict climate
change mitigation responses, among individuals who subjectively attributed the floods to climate change.
Additionally, subjective attribution of the floods to climate change is significantly predicted by pre-existing
climate change belief, political affiliation and perceived normative cues. Attempts to harness extreme weather
experiences as a route to engaging the public must be attentive to the heterogeneity of opinion on the attributability
of extreme weather events to climate change.
Description
The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.
Citation : Ogunbode, C. A., Demski, C., Capstick, S. B., and Sposato, R. G. (2019) Attribution matters: revisiting the link between extreme weather experience and climate change mitigation responses. Global Environmental Change, 54, pp. 31-39.
Research Institute : Institute for Psychological Science
Peer Reviewed : Yes