Abstract
Due to climatic changes, water is an increasingly stressed resource requiring innovative solutions. Yet water crises - and solutions - communication frequently involve life-threatening messaging. This messaging may evoke mortality anxieties, triggering psychological defenses that can result in counter-productive behaviours. Terror Management Theory (TMT) finds these defenses involve resource hording and outgroup derogation, features that contradict collaborative, pro-environmental behaviour. While some TMT research indicates climate change messaging can evoke mortality anxieties, threatening water messaging has not been explicitly tested. This is valuable as water resources are important, threatened components of climate change, and necessary for human survival. We compared three threatening water messages (drowning, n=92; dehydration, n=84; contaminated water, n=88) to a traditional mortality reminder (n=127) and a control (n=129) to determine if similar psychological defenses emerged. Following interventions and delay tasks, we measured death-thought availability (DTA), a frequently used subconscious mortality salience measure, and compared DTA between groups. Two of the three messages resulted in similar DTA as the traditional mortality prime. Reasons for why the one message did not evoke DTA are discussed. We further examined messaging influence on sustainable worldviews, measured after intervention and delay. Environmental worldviews were compared between groups to determine messaging influence. Results are discussed. Identifying human responses and mortality salience within threatening water messaging will inform water crises communication and approaches for greater pro-environmental behaviours and outcomes. For example, should threatening water messaging increase outgroup derogation, this communication will prevent effective, sustainable water solutions that require diverse input and collaboration.
Presenters
Lauren SmithPhD Candidate, School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Technical, Political, and Social Responses
KEYWORDS
Climate Communication; Mortality Salience; Water Crises; Social Psychology; Human Response
