Cli-fi videos can increase charitable donations: experimental evidence from the United Kingdom
Recent research has begun to investigate if climate fiction, or cli-fi, can increase people’s support for pro-climate initiatives. Emerging evidence focuses on whether cli-fi stories affect people’s self-reported emotions, attitudes, and intentions. Few studies, however, examine the effect of such s...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2024-01-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1176077/full |
| _version_ | 1797351288449531904 |
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| author | Ganga Shreedhar Anandita Sabherwal Anandita Sabherwal Ricardo Maldonado Ricardo Maldonado |
| author_facet | Ganga Shreedhar Anandita Sabherwal Anandita Sabherwal Ricardo Maldonado Ricardo Maldonado |
| author_sort | Ganga Shreedhar |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Recent research has begun to investigate if climate fiction, or cli-fi, can increase people’s support for pro-climate initiatives. Emerging evidence focuses on whether cli-fi stories affect people’s self-reported emotions, attitudes, and intentions. Few studies, however, examine the effect of such stories on revealed behavior, and whether the cli-fi story medium, i.e., whether stories are presented in text, audio, or audio-visual format, matters. We investigate the causal effect of cli-fi stories, and the medium through which they are communicated (textual, audio, or audio-visual) on self-reported support for climate policy, individual and collective action intentions, and a revealed measure of charitable donations. In a pre-registered online experiment (n = 1,085 UK adults), participants were randomly assigned to one of 5 conditions – to read scientific information about climate change (scientific information condition), read a story unrelated to the environment (control), read a cli-fi story in which a protagonist took intentional pro-environmental actions (fiction text), listen to the same cli-fi story in audio format (fiction audio), or watch an animation of the cli-fi story (fiction video). When comparing the fiction-text, fact-text, and control conditions, we found that cli-fi stories are not always more effective than alternative climate communications: participants in the fact-text condition reported higher support for climate policies, and intentions of taking individual environmental actions, and negative feelings of sadness, disappointment, and guilt, compared to the text-based control and cli-fi text condition. When comparing the cli-fi media format, we found that cli-fi videos were most effective in increasing pro-environmental charitable donations in an incentivized choice task, and self-reported feelings of happiness, hope, and inspiration. The findings show that scientific information about the climate and climate-fiction have an important place in the climate communications toolkit and can offer distinct pathways to enhance support for policy and behavioral change. Communicators seeking to inspire individual pro-environmental actions can consider telling cli-fi stories in video, which may be more compelling. And communicators seeking to enhance public support for societal changes, via climate policies, may benefit from disseminating scientific information about climate change. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-08T12:58:09Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-62f6fe2812e04195b7a35314e341dcec |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-08T12:58:09Z |
| publishDate | 2024-01-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-62f6fe2812e04195b7a35314e341dcec2024-01-19T14:40:35ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782024-01-011410.3389/fpsyg.2023.11760771176077Cli-fi videos can increase charitable donations: experimental evidence from the United KingdomGanga Shreedhar0Anandita Sabherwal1Anandita Sabherwal2Ricardo Maldonado3Ricardo Maldonado4Department of Psychological and Behavioural Sciences, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, United KingdomDepartment of Psychological and Behavioural Sciences, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, United KingdomGrantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, United KingdomDepartment of Psychological and Behavioural Sciences, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, United KingdomCine70, Lima, PeruRecent research has begun to investigate if climate fiction, or cli-fi, can increase people’s support for pro-climate initiatives. Emerging evidence focuses on whether cli-fi stories affect people’s self-reported emotions, attitudes, and intentions. Few studies, however, examine the effect of such stories on revealed behavior, and whether the cli-fi story medium, i.e., whether stories are presented in text, audio, or audio-visual format, matters. We investigate the causal effect of cli-fi stories, and the medium through which they are communicated (textual, audio, or audio-visual) on self-reported support for climate policy, individual and collective action intentions, and a revealed measure of charitable donations. In a pre-registered online experiment (n = 1,085 UK adults), participants were randomly assigned to one of 5 conditions – to read scientific information about climate change (scientific information condition), read a story unrelated to the environment (control), read a cli-fi story in which a protagonist took intentional pro-environmental actions (fiction text), listen to the same cli-fi story in audio format (fiction audio), or watch an animation of the cli-fi story (fiction video). When comparing the fiction-text, fact-text, and control conditions, we found that cli-fi stories are not always more effective than alternative climate communications: participants in the fact-text condition reported higher support for climate policies, and intentions of taking individual environmental actions, and negative feelings of sadness, disappointment, and guilt, compared to the text-based control and cli-fi text condition. When comparing the cli-fi media format, we found that cli-fi videos were most effective in increasing pro-environmental charitable donations in an incentivized choice task, and self-reported feelings of happiness, hope, and inspiration. The findings show that scientific information about the climate and climate-fiction have an important place in the climate communications toolkit and can offer distinct pathways to enhance support for policy and behavioral change. Communicators seeking to inspire individual pro-environmental actions can consider telling cli-fi stories in video, which may be more compelling. And communicators seeking to enhance public support for societal changes, via climate policies, may benefit from disseminating scientific information about climate change.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1176077/fullclimate communicationsclimate fictioncharitable donationsemotionsvideosexperiment |
| spellingShingle | Ganga Shreedhar Anandita Sabherwal Anandita Sabherwal Ricardo Maldonado Ricardo Maldonado Cli-fi videos can increase charitable donations: experimental evidence from the United Kingdom Frontiers in Psychology climate communications climate fiction charitable donations emotions videos experiment |
| title | Cli-fi videos can increase charitable donations: experimental evidence from the United Kingdom |
| title_full | Cli-fi videos can increase charitable donations: experimental evidence from the United Kingdom |
| title_fullStr | Cli-fi videos can increase charitable donations: experimental evidence from the United Kingdom |
| title_full_unstemmed | Cli-fi videos can increase charitable donations: experimental evidence from the United Kingdom |
| title_short | Cli-fi videos can increase charitable donations: experimental evidence from the United Kingdom |
| title_sort | cli fi videos can increase charitable donations experimental evidence from the united kingdom |
| topic | climate communications climate fiction charitable donations emotions videos experiment |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1176077/full |
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