Hope-related messaging can be more effective than fear-based communications in encouraging creative problem solving around sustainability, a new study by researchers at the University of Nottingham has suggested.
The study, which was published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, examined how different emotions influence problem solving when it comes to climate action.
Impact on behaviour
“We wanted to explore the theory that positive emotions may have a broader impact on behaviour, and be more likely to produce creative behaviour,” commented Professor Alexa Spence, of the university’s School of Psychology, who led the study.
“We all too often see negative emotions, such as fear, guilt, and anger used to try to influence sustainable behaviour, and whilst they may create an initial short-term reaction, we propose that positive emotions may have different, wider reaching and longer lasting effects.”
About the study
As part of the research, close to 500 participants took part in two separate studies to explore the idea of ‘climate creativity’ – the first saw participants complete a series of exercises aimed at measuring different aspects of creativity, while the second examined how emotional messaging influenced climate creativity.
This involved participants being randomly assigned to watch one of two climate-related videos, each designed to evoke a different emotional response.
‘The hope video had an optimistic stance in commenting on climate change: potential mitigation approaches were highlighted, and language was positive and cheerful with uplifting background music,’ the university noted. ‘The fear video had a pessimistic stance: doubts were expressed about the efficacy of solutions and language was alarming and negative, with downbeat background music and a dark filter on the imagery used.’
After watching the videos, participants completed further creativity and sustainability-related tasks, and found that participants exposed to hopeful climate messaging demonstrated higher levels of creativity, particularly in generating ideas related to sustainable behaviour and climate action.
‘Inspiring hope’
“The results of the study indicates that inspiring hope in climate change is related to increased levels of creativity, and specifically climate creativity,” Professor Spence added. “This is the first study of its kind to identify increases in climate creativity as a result of hope communications, indicating that hope may be a resource to draw on in promoting problem solving and action on climate change.
“Theoretically, positive emotions are more likely to inspire social behaviour and longer lasting behaviour change and therefore also have the potential to inspire positive feedback loops where further environmental actions are seen as a consequence.” Read more here.
