Climate change is easily identified as one of the most contentious and pressing policy problems facing the United States. While scientific opinions on the reality of climate change show high levels of agreement, a non-trivial component of the public rejects the claims of these scientists. Why? Current social science explanations of this divergence in opinion have tended to focus on either the public's lack of accurate knowledge or media bias that misleads the public. These explanations focus on message structure influence, but fail to account for characteristics internal to the individual that most certainly interact with these message structures. This dissertation addresses this gap in our knowledge.
Two theories that account for both individual internal factors and external stimuli in opinion formation and change are merged to create a Cultural Narrative Model (CNM). Specifically, Cultural Theory metrics assess individual cultural predispositions, while narrative provides the message structuring theory. This model is tested using a web-based experimental manipulation of over 2500 nationally representative respondents. Among other findings, the CNM may suggest that narrative structure plays a significant role in helping respondents develop emotional responses to groups, determining how much of a threat climate change is, and, how willing a respondent is to act on the threat of climate change. One broader impact of this project is that the new knowledge should be beneficial to society through its utility to risk communicators.
" was awarded in 2010. Data were collected, an online experiment conducted, and analysis performed in the effort to evaluate two research questions: Does cultural narrative structure influence respondent preferences and perception of risk related to climate change? Does cultural narrative content influence respondent preferences and perception of risk related to climate change? Analyses of related data are summarized in the dissertation titled Heroes and Villains: Cultural Narratives, Mass Opinions, and Climate Change. This dissertation was successfully defended in May of 2010 at the University of Oklahoma. Results indicate that facts about climate change presented in narrative form are more likely to shape respondent preferences and perceptions of risk than facts presented in list form. However, congruent or incongruent content was not revealed to play a major role in preference formation and risk perception. An unexpected finding not directly related to the research questions was also uncovered. When exposed to the narrative experimental treatments, respondents were found to like the hero more. As positive emotion for the hero grew, so too did the respondent’s support for the assumptions and arguments presented in the narrative. In practical terms, this means that the more the respondent liked the hero, the more likely the respondent was to believe climate change was real, human beings were causing it, that climate change was a threat, and that we should do something about it. The broader implications of such findings are relatively straightforward. Scientists should consider the story they package findings in when conveying complicated findings such as those in the climate change area when communicating those findings to the general public.
