IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v20y2022i1p7-d1008648.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Motivating Personal Climate Action through a Safety and Health Risk Management Framework

Author

Listed:
  • Charmaine Mullins-Jaime

    (Department of Built Environment, Bailey College of Engineering & Technology, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN 47809, USA)

  • Jan K. Wachter

    (Safety Sciences Department, John J. and Char Kopchick College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, PA 15705, USA)

Abstract

Background: There is overwhelming evidence the impacts of climate change present a probable threat to personal health and safety. However, traditional risk management approaches have not been applied to ameliorate the crises. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact on personal motivation for action of a communication intervention that framed climate change as a safety issue that can be mitigated through a safety and health risk management framework. Participants’ perception of climate change in terms of its anthropogenicity, context and importance, perception as a personal threat, belief in the efficacy of human action, motivating drivers for action, knowledge of climate change impacts, perceived personal barriers to climate action, and short- and long-term preferences for mitigating actions were evaluated. In addition, this study assessed the role of personal worldview on motivation for climate action. Methods: Through an online survey instrument embedded with a communication/education intervention, data were collected from N = 273 participants. Pre and post-intervention responses were assessed using Wilcoxon signed-rank tests and descriptive statistics. A path analysis assessed the influence of anthropogenicity, personal impact, and human efficacy beliefs on participant motivation for action. Multi-regression analyses and descriptive statics were used to evaluate the role of worldview on participant motivation for climate action. Results: Personal motivation for action significantly increased post-intervention. Anthropogenicity, personal impact, and human efficacy beliefs were predictive of personal motivation. Those who prioritized climate change as a safety issue and those driven by a desire to protect current and future generations had higher levels of personal motivation, post-intervention. Knowledge of climate change increased, psychosocial factors as barriers to climate action decreased, and preferences for personal mitigating actions shifted towards more impactful choices post-intervention. Holding Egalitarian worldviews significantly predicted climate action motivation. Conclusion: Presenting climate change and climate action strategies via a traditional health and safety risk management context was effective in increasing personal motivation for climate action. This study contributes to the literature on climate change communication and climate action motivation.

Suggested Citation

  • Charmaine Mullins-Jaime & Jan K. Wachter, 2022. "Motivating Personal Climate Action through a Safety and Health Risk Management Framework," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-20, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2022:i:1:p:7-:d:1008648
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/1/7/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/1/7/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alexa Spence & Wouter Poortinga & Nick Pidgeon, 2012. "The Psychological Distance of Climate Change," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(6), pages 957-972, June.
    2. Nada Petrovic & Jaime Madrigano & Lisa Zaval, 2014. "Motivating mitigation: when health matters more than climate change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 126(1), pages 245-254, September.
    3. Sander L van der Linden & Anthony A Leiserowitz & Geoffrey D Feinberg & Edward W Maibach, 2015. "The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change as a Gateway Belief: Experimental Evidence," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(2), pages 1-8, February.
    4. Teresa Myers & Matthew Nisbet & Edward Maibach & Anthony Leiserowitz, 2012. "A public health frame arouses hopeful emotions about climate change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 113(3), pages 1105-1112, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shane P Singh & Meili Swanson, 2017. "How issue frames shape beliefs about the importance of climate change policy across ideological and partisan groups," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(7), pages 1-14, July.
    2. Paul H. Thibodeau & Cynthia McPherson Frantz & Matias Berretta, 2017. "The earth is our home: systemic metaphors to redefine our relationship with nature," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 142(1), pages 287-300, May.
    3. Haoran Chu & Janet Yang, 2020. "Their Economy and Our Health: Communicating Climate Change to the Divided American Public," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(21), pages 1-17, October.
    4. Janel Jett & Leigh Raymond, 2021. "Issue Framing and U.S. State Energy and Climate Policy Choice," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 38(3), pages 278-299, May.
    5. Rosalind Pidcock & Kate Heath & Lydia Messling & Susie Wang & Anna Pirani & Sarah Connors & Adam Corner & Christopher Shaw & Melissa Gomis, 2021. "Evaluating effective public engagement: local stories from a global network of IPCC scientists," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 168(3), pages 1-22, October.
    6. Haoran Chu & Janet Z. Yang, 2020. "Risk or Efficacy? How Psychological Distance Influences Climate Change Engagement," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(4), pages 758-770, April.
    7. Samantha K Stanley & Anna Klas & Edward J R Clarke & Iain Walker, 2021. "The effects of a temporal framing manipulation on environmentalism: A replication and extension," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(2), pages 1-34, February.
    8. Jialing Huang & Janet Z. Yang & Haoran Chu, 2022. "Framing Climate Change Impacts as Moral Violations: The Pathway of Perceived Message Credibility," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(9), pages 1-19, April.
    9. Heather W. Cann, 2021. "Policy or scientific messaging? Strategic framing in a case of subnational climate change conflict," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 38(5), pages 570-595, September.
    10. Alina Herrmann & Rainer Sauerborn & Maria Nilsson, 2020. "The Role of Health in Households’ Balancing Act for Lifestyles Compatible with the Paris Agreement—Qualitative Results from Mannheim, Germany," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(4), pages 1-24, February.
    11. Jason Gainous & Rodger A. Payne & Melissa K. Merry, 2021. "Do Source cues or frames matter? Convincing the public about the veracity of climate science," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(4), pages 1894-1906, July.
    12. Adam Seth Levine & Reuben Kline, 2017. "A new approach for evaluating climate change communication," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 142(1), pages 301-309, May.
    13. Mohamed Didi Alaoui & Véronique Cova, 2021. "La distance psychologique comme outil actionnable par les managers," Post-Print hal-03126709, HAL.
    14. Dominic Balog‐Way & Katherine McComas & John Besley, 2020. "The Evolving Field of Risk Communication," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(S1), pages 2240-2262, November.
    15. Rita Abdel Sater, 2021. "Essays on the application of behavioural insights to environmental policy [Essais sur l’application des connaissances comportementales aux politiques environnementales]," SciencePo Working papers tel-03450909, HAL.
    16. Amanda Hinnant & Roma Subramanian & Rachel Young, 2016. "User comments on climate stories: impacts of anecdotal vs. scientific evidence," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 138(3), pages 411-424, October.
    17. Vivianne H. M. Visschers, 2018. "Public Perception of Uncertainties Within Climate Change Science," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(1), pages 43-55, January.
    18. Connie Roser-Renouf & Edward W Maibach & Jennifer Li, 2016. "Adapting to the Changing Climate: An Assessment of Local Health Department Preparations for Climate Change-Related Health Threats, 2008-2012," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(3), pages 1-17, March.
    19. Berlemann, Michael & Bumann, Silke & Methorst, Joel, 2024. "Do climate-related disasters cause dissatisfaction with environmental policies?," HWWI Working Paper Series 1/2024, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI).
    20. Hart, P. Sol & Stedman, Richard C. & Clarke, Christopher E., 2021. "Political polarization in support for subsidizing unprofitable coal power plants," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2022:i:1:p:7-:d:1008648. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.