Emotional Engagement in Climate Change Communication
Summary
Emotional engagement in climate change communication explores how affective responses—ranging from fear and distress to hope and pride—influence individuals’ perceptions of risk, their sense of agency and ultimately their willingness to adopt sustainable behaviours. This research strand recognises that purely informational or data-driven approaches often fail to motivate action, and that well-calibrated emotional appeals can bridge the gap between understanding and doing. Key strategies include crafting narratives that transport audiences into the lived experience of climate impacts, framing messages to balance acknowledgement of threats with solution-focused opportunities, and leveraging place-based imagery to foster personal identification. The interplay between discrete emotions (such as worry or anger) and broader affective states (such as constructive hope) is shown to shape both immediate intentions and longer-term behavioural trajectories. Recent interdisciplinary work spans behavioural science, cognitive neuroscience and design research, highlighting the importance of collective efficacy and agency in sustaining engagement and avoiding emotional fatigue or denial. As climate challenges intensify globally, refining emotional engagement techniques offers a pathway to catalyse sustained, collective action and inform policy and outreach initiatives across diverse communities.
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Emotional Engagement in Climate Change Communication publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in emotional engagement in climate change communication across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Affective engagement: The process by which an individual’s emotions influence their attention to, processing of and response to a message about climate change.
Collective efficacy: A belief in the shared capacity of a group or community to organise and execute actions that address climate challenges.
Narrative transportation: A state in which an audience becomes mentally immersed in a story, leading to heightened emotional and behavioural responses.
Constructive hope: A forward-looking emotion that combines belief in positive outcomes with recognition of current challenges, motivating proactive engagement.
References
- Connecting audiences with climate change: Towards humanised and action-focused data interactions. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies (2024).
- The role of iconic places, collective efficacy, and negative emotions in climate change communication. Environmental Science & Policy (2024).
- Affect and emotions as drivers of climate change perception and action: a review. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences (2021).
- Stories vs. facts: triggering emotion and action-taking on climate change. Climatic Change (2019).
- Hopium or empowering hope? A meta-analysis of hope and climate engagement. Frontiers in Psychology (2023).
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