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Category: Hypothesis

Description: Based on research on framing effects and biased cognition, this paper investigated the limitations and challenges of framing pro-environmental messages in nationalist terms emphasising the importance of upholding national security, sovereignty and leadership in global climate change mitigation –a growing tendency among pro-environmental governments and politicians. Evidence from two survey experiments in the United States (N=1075 and N=205, respectively) supported the hypotheses that political identities and prior attitudes drove the effects of frame exposure on climate change attitudes by influencing which considerations remained salient in people’s minds following exposure. Specifically, Democrats (versus Republicans and non-affiliated) and less (versus more) nationalist participants assigned less salience to nationalist considerations following exposure to pro-environmental nationalist climate change frames, resulting in lower ethnocultural national identities and, in turn, higher policy support and lower climate scepticism. Thus, this paper highlighted the limitations of information to influence climate change attitudes and its implications for framing effects theory, climate change mitigation, and democracy.