How Implicit Negative Affect Mediates News Framing Effects on Individual Risk Perceptions and Behavioral Intentions

• In Event: How Framing Can Influence Advocacy and Protest

Abstract

This study tests the impact of threat framing of the issue of climate change on citizens' individual risk perceptions and behavioral intentions. Central to our investigation is the assessment of a new method accounting for implicit positive and negative affect (IPANAT) as a potential mediator of media effects. The present study employs an online survey experiment (N=923) in which respondents are exposed to either a threat frame or a no-threat frame about climate change. We show that respondents exposed to the threat frame express stronger negative affective responses to the frame on our implicit negative affect measure, which mediates the effect on subsequent risk perceptions and behavioral intentions. Implicit negative affect contributes to the explanation of these effects above and beyond more commonly employed standard measures of explicit emotional response. Thus, our study shows how respondents are affected by threat framing about climate change without themselves being aware of it.

Authors

• Andreas Schuck, U of Amsterdam

• Lukas Otto, U of Koblenz-Landau