Strategic Environmental Communications: Identifying Implicit Emotional Connections on Climate Change

Climate communications strategists have historically been challenged in how to effectively communicate climate change issues to different consumer segments. This mobile study used an innovative picture-based implicit survey technique to uncover nuanced emotions on climate change as a function of the respondent's political party affiliation.  Independent voters harbor deep anger about the lack of action on climate change among U.S. policy-makers, suggesting that presidential candidates who tap into that emotion will have leverage over their ballot choices in the primary election season and the final election in November 2020.

Conducted online over a two-week period, June 12-June 24, 2019, prior to the first Democratic debates, the study included data from 914 United States citizens [Democrat n=358, Republican n=344, Independent n=212] who voted in the 2016 Presidential Election and who report intent to vote in the 2020 Presidential Election. The researchers also identified key emotions felt on the United States’ stance on global climate change across Democratic, Independent and Republican political parties, which differed across party lines.

This nationally representative study employed a methodological procedure known as PIAT, or "Pictorial Implicit Association Test," combining both image selection and the speed in which the image was selected to assess both choice and the conviction or strength of that choice.

This combination of explicit choice and implicit response time allows for a rank ordering of emotional imagery that is much more granular in nature than explicit image selection alone.

Bellwether’s proprietary PIAT uses a series of over 2000 photos that have been validated to represent 32 discrete, highly specific responses that span the spectrum of human emotions. 


 

Bellwether researchers found that emotions on the country’s posture on global climate change are resoundingly negative. Democrats registered the strongest negative emotions, coming in at a score of -85.3, followed by Independents at -75.2, and Republicans at -46.5.

Democrats have more pronounced negative feelings about America’s stance on climate change than Independents, but also feel the most restricted and less angry – and therefore potentially less likely to act on their negative perceptions. Meanwhile, Republicans are the least negative of the three groups – about half as much as Democrats – while also expressing both confusion and restriction about the issue.

What unifies all voters surveyed in the emotional polling study was cross-party discontent and a yearning for courage by elected leaders in the face of mounting evidence of the harmful impacts of climate change. Further onsets of severe weather as the 2020 presidential race takes shape could alter the emotional landscape of voters desperate for solutions to the looming threats of floods, fires, tornadoes, earthquakes and other disasters linked to global warming. 

Bellwether's study reveals new insights about the undercurrents of emotion about our country’s outlook on global climate change among the voting populace. The findings have far-reaching implications for potential impact on the upcoming elections, at both the national and local levels. Bellwether Citizen Response expects that candidates will especially want to monitor how they are communicating climate initiatives at an emotional level as they develop and hone message strategies that can differentiate them on an issue critical to all global citizens.