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One Day When We Were Young: Nostalgia Brings Climate Change Temporally Closer

  • Shenzhen University

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

The perceived temporal distance of climate change impacts has been considered a long-standing barrier to climate engagement. Because nostalgia has distinct cognitive properties related to temporal thinking, three experimental studies are conducted to investigate nostalgia's potential for shortening temporal distance. Study 1 shows that nostalgia increases climate engagement by reducing temporal distance. Study 2 further identifies vivid imagery as a mechanism for the nostalgia effects across US and Chinese samples. Study 3 shows that nostalgic public service announcements increase climate engagement more than non-nostalgic ones. This study provides strong evidence that evoking nostalgia can be a useful climate change communication strategy.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1147-1167
Number of pages21
JournalEnvironmental Communication
Volume18
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - 2024

Keywords

  • Climate change
  • behavior intention
  • nostalgia
  • risk perception
  • temporal distance

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