Development and validation of the Emotional Climate Change Stories (ECCS) stimuli set

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cris.lastimport.scopus2025-08-28T03:14:26Z
dc.abstract.enClimate change is widely recognised as an urgent issue, and the number of people concerned about it is increasing. While emotions are among the strongest predictors of behaviour change in the face of climate change, researchers have only recently begun to investigate this topic experimentally. This may be due to the lack of standardised, validated stimuli that would make studying such a topic in experimental settings possible. Here, we introduce a novel Emotional Climate Change Stories (ECCS) stimuli set. ECCS consists of 180 realistic short stories about climate change, designed to evoke five distinct emotions—anger, anxiety, compassion, guilt and hope—in addition to neutral stories. The stories were created based on qualitative data collected in two independent studies: one conducted among individuals highly concerned about climate change, and another one conducted in the general population. The stories were rated on the scales of valence, arousal, anger, anxiety, compassion, guilt and hope in the course of three independent studies. First, we explored the underlying structure of ratings (Study 1; n = 601). Then we investigated the replicability (Study 2; n = 307) and cross-cultural validity (Study 3; n = 346) of ECCS. The collected ratings were highly consistent across the studies. Furthermore, we found that the level of climate change concern explained the intensity of elicited emotions. The ECCS dataset is available in Polish, Norwegian and English and can be employed for experimental research on climate communication, environmental attitudes, climate action-taking, or mental health and wellbeing.
dc.affiliationWydział Psychologii i Prawa w Poznaniu
dc.affiliationInstytut Psychologii
dc.contributor.authorZaremba, Dominika
dc.contributor.authorMichałowski, Jarosław
dc.contributor.authorKlöckner, Christian A.
dc.contributor.authorMarchewka, Artur
dc.contributor.authorWierzba, Małgorzata
dc.date.access2024-09-11
dc.date.accessioned2024-11-08T09:10:53Z
dc.date.available2024-11-08T09:10:53Z
dc.date.created2024-06-21
dc.date.issued2024-04-18
dc.description.abstract<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Climate change is widely recognised as an urgent issue, and the number of people concerned about it is increasing. While emotions are among the strongest predictors of behaviour change in the face of climate change, researchers have only recently begun to investigate this topic experimentally. This may be due to the lack of standardised, validated stimuli that would make studying such a topic in experimental settings possible. Here, we introduce a novel Emotional Climate Change Stories (ECCS) stimuli set. ECCS consists of 180 realistic short stories about climate change, designed to evoke five distinct emotions—anger, anxiety, compassion, guilt and hope—in addition to neutral stories. The stories were created based on qualitative data collected in two independent studies: one conducted among individuals highly concerned about climate change, and another one conducted in the general population. The stories were rated on the scales of valence, arousal, anger, anxiety, compassion, guilt and hope in the course of three independent studies. First, we explored the underlying structure of ratings (Study 1; <jats:italic>n</jats:italic> = 601). Then we investigated the replicability (Study 2; <jats:italic>n</jats:italic> = 307) and cross-cultural validity (Study 3; <jats:italic>n</jats:italic> = 346) of ECCS. The collected ratings were highly consistent across the studies. Furthermore, we found that the level of climate change concern explained the intensity of elicited emotions. The ECCS dataset is available in Polish, Norwegian and English and can be employed for experimental research on climate communication, environmental attitudes, climate action-taking, or mental health and wellbeing.</jats:p>
dc.description.accesstimeafter_publication
dc.description.grantnumber2019/34/H/ HS6/00677
dc.description.issue4
dc.description.physical3330–3345
dc.description.versionfinal_published
dc.description.volume56
dc.identifier.doi10.3758/s13428-024-02408-1
dc.identifier.issn1554-3528
dc.identifier.urihttps://share.swps.edu.pl/handle/swps/1081
dc.languageen
dc.pbn.affiliationpsychologia
dc.rightsCC-BY
dc.rights.explanationNie mam pojęcia czy osiągnięcie może być upubliczniane w SWPS Science Share. Proszę o sprawdzenie
dc.rights.questionYes_rights
dc.share.articleOPEN_JOURNAL
dc.subject.enClimate change
dc.subject.enPro-environmental behaviour
dc.subject.enEmotion
dc.subject.enClimate emotions
dc.subject.enValence
dc.subject.enArousal
dc.swps.sciencecloudsend
dc.titleDevelopment and validation of the Emotional Climate Change Stories (ECCS) stimuli set
dc.title.journalBehavior Research Methods
dc.typeJournalArticle
dspace.entity.typeArticle