Zahra Rahmani Azad

Given the accelerating climate crisis, carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies are becoming increasingly important, while public support may play a relevant role in their implementation. This support is influenced by how citizens inform themselves about the technology. While prior research has examined public support under conditions of no or predefined information provision, little is known about the factors that shape how individuals actively select information about CDR and integrate it into their preferences about the technology. Here, we investigate how initial affect towards CDR shapes laypersons’ selection and evaluation of benefit-related versus risk-related information about the technology and how these processes influence subsequent policy support. In a preregistered study with 714 U.S. participants, we introduced a novel information-sampling task, in which participants could freely choose which information about CDR to attend to, followed by a policy choice experiment assessing public support of CDR technologies. In line with our hypotheses, participants’ initial affect influenced their information search: more initial positive affect towards CDR was associated with a higher likelihood to select benefit-related versus risk-related information about CDR. This confirmatory information search, in turn, was associated with immediate changes in affect towards the technology, especially when the information was perceived as persuasive. These affective changes across information search carried over to subsequent decisions to support climate policies in general and policy portfolios including CDR in particular. Overall, our findings highlight the reciprocal relationship between affect, endogenous information search, and support for CDR technologies.

Public discourses surrounding demand-side climate policies create complex and conflicting information environments. Yet, little is known about how citizens actively select climate information, how this impacts climate policy attitudes, and how these processes vary across national contexts. Here, we introduce a sequential information-sampling paradigm across 15 countries from the Global North and South (N _total =4,898). Participants freely chose between ’Pro’-policy, ’Anti’-policy or unrelated, disengaging information to evaluate four climate food policies. Across all countries, participants preferentially selected attitude-consistent information with information engagement being highest among participants with extreme initial policy attitudes. Sampling robustly induced changes in policy support. This resulted in consolidated policy attitudes and increased polarization within national samples. Cross-nationally, low-emission and low-income countries exhibited higher policy support and higher informed-based malleability. Our findings shed light on the dynamics between free information search, attitude formation and socio-economic contexts, highlighting challenges for climate communicators to reach critical target groups.

To improve climate communication, it is crucial to understand how different audiences respond to pro-climate messages, particularly in information environments where accurate information competes with climate-contrarian disinformation. Here, we analyze responses to real-world climate change information and their downstream consequences for climate change concern and information search behavior. Using computational social science techniques, we gathered a diverse set of real-world pro-climate messages from the social media platform Twitter/X. These pro-climate messages were evaluated on several dimensions by a representative sample of the UK population ( N = 503). Message evaluations from conservative and liberal participants showed substantial covariation, pointing to an overall consensus on the ranking of the persuasive and informative qualities of the messages. Specification curve analysis, in addition, revealed robust main effects on individual differences on message evaluation. Coupling the data with results from a large cross-cultural experiment ( N = 2,226), showed that collective message evaluations shared strong commonalities across nations. These evaluations, in turn, predicted shifts in climate concern and climate information search behavior, with more positively evaluated messages decreasing the likelihood of subsequent engagement with climate-contrarian disinformation. Alongside the empirical data, we release the ClimateChirp database containing validated pro-climate stimuli for future climate communication research. Despite individual differences in responses to climate communication, we found an overall consensus on aggregate ratings across audience groups, which were associated with shifts in concern and behavior after message exposure.

In the media, accurate climate information and climate disinformation often coexist and present competing narratives about climate change. Whereas previous research documented detrimental effects of disinformation on climate beliefs, little is known about how people seek climate‐related content and how this varies between cross‐cultural contexts. In a preregistered experiment, we studied how individuals sequentially sample and process Pro‐ and Anti‐climate statements across 15 rounds. Participants from the United States, China, and Germany ( N _total = 2226) freely sampled real‐world climate‐related statements, retrieved from Twitter and validated in previous studies. Overall, reading both Pro‐ and Anti‐climate statements influenced climate concern in all countries. Participants preferred statements that were better aligned with their initial climate beliefs, and this confirmatory tendency intensified the more information had been sampled. Moreover, participants' confirmatory evaluation (i.e., accepting aligned and rejecting opposing messages) increased over time. While climate concern was mostly stable, in the United States, climate concern levels and box choices mutually reinforced each other, leading to greater polarization within the sample over the course of the experiment. The paradigm offers new perspectives on how people process and navigate conflicting narratives about climate change.

In the media, accurate climate information and climate disinformation often coexist and presentcompeting narratives about climate change. Whereas previous research documented detri-mental effects of disinformation on climate beliefs, little is known about how people seekclimate-related content and how this varies between cross-cultural contexts. In a preregisteredexperiment, we studied how individuals sequentially sample and process Pro- and Anti-climatestatements across 15 rounds. Participants from the U.S., China and Germany (N_total = 2, 226)freely sampled real-world climate related statements, retrieved from Twitter and validated inprevious studies. Overall, reading both Pro- and Anti-climate statements influenced climateconcern in all countries. Moreover, participants preferred statements that were better alignedwith their initial climate beliefs, and this confirmatory tendency intensified the more informationhad been sampled. Participants’ confirmatory evaluation (i.e., accepting aligned and rejectingopposing messages) increased over time. While climate concern was mostly stable, in theU.S., climate concern levels and box choices mutually reinforced each other, leading to greaterpolarization within the sample over the course of the experiment. The paradigm offers newperspectives on how people process and navigate conflicting narratives about climate change.

To accelerate climate change mitigation, lifestyle changes and more ambitious climatepolicies are urgently needed. However, realizing lifestyle changes is challenged bywidespread misperceptions about the climate impact of different mitigation behaviors, makingit difficult even for motivated individuals to identify which actions to prioritize and whichpolicies to support. Little is known about the cross-national variability of such climate impactperceptions and their association with climate-relevant outcomes. We aim to address this gapwith a pre-registered cross-country study (N = 2,742) in China, Germany, and the UnitedStates. Using a novel experimental paradigm, we investigate the extent to which participants’perceptions of the climate impact of behaviors and their accuracy in estimating carbonfootprints is associated with their own climate-related behavior and their support for behavior-targeted climate policies. Across the three countries, participants largely misperceived overallcarbon footprints, and underestimated the climate impact of highly carbon-intensive actions.Despite these behavior-specific misperceptions, impact perceptions of different actions wereindependent of each other, showing no evidence for compensatory judgments. Participants’impact perceptions and carbon footprint accuracy were associated with their owncorresponding behavior across all countries. However, the association between impactperceptions and climate policy support varied by national context with impact perceptionshaving a direct effect in Germany, no effect in China, and a moderated effect by politicalorientation in the United States. Our study highlights the need for cross-national research tofurther uncover contexts that foster accurate behavioral knowledge and correspondingsustainable behavior.

Addressing climate change requires substantial shifts in individual behavior. Providing information about climate externalities through carbon labels is a promising tool to foster sustainable choices when individuals weigh environmental against personal outcomes. We study the impact of carbon labels and their underlying mechanisms in a repeated risky choice task. We ran two preregistered experiments (US samples, N = 1268) with realized carbon and monetary payoffs, examining how choice is influenced by the timing of carbon information (One-off vs. Recurring) and participants’ political preference (i.e., Democrat or Republican voters). In Study 1, we find that both Democrats and Republicans reduce carbon emissions when carbon labels were provided. Further, recurring labels significantly reduced carbon choices compared to one-off labels. Study 2 replicated the results in a within-participant design and showed that the impact of recurring carbon labels on sustainable choices cannot be explained by the strength of emission recall. This suggests that recurring labels amplify the importance given to the climate attribute in the decision process,operating via attentional rather than informational mechanisms. Our results emphasize the importance of providing climate externality information at time of use to raise awareness about climate costs and bolster sustainable preferences across population segments.

Addressing climate change requires substantial shifts in individual behavior. Providing information about climate externalities through carbon labels is a promising tool to foster sustainable choices when individuals weigh environmental against personal outcomes. We study the impact of carbon labels over time and their underlying mechanisms in a repeated risky choice task. We ran two preregistered experiments (US samples, N = 1,268) with realized carbon and monetary payoffs, examining how choice is influenced by the timing of carbon information (One-off vs. Recurring) and participants’ political preference (i.e., Democrat or Republican voters). In Study 1, we find that both Democrats and Republicans reduce carbon emissions when carbon labels were provided. Further, recurring labels significantly reduced carbon choices compared to one-off labels. Study 2 replicated the results in a within-participant design and showed that the impact of recurring carbon labels on sustainable choices cannot be explained by the strength of emission recall. This suggests that recurring labels amplify the importance given to the climate attribute in the decision process, operating via attentional rather than informational mechanisms. Our results emphasize the importance of providing climate externality information at time of use to raise awareness about climate costs and bolster sustainable preferences across population segments.