Abstract
The complex long-term nature of climate change often leads people to distance themselves from its impacts. Recent studies suggest that harnessing legacy motivations, or peoples’ interest in their personal legacies and concern for future generations, may be a successful mechanism for overcoming this barrier. It has also been shown that highlighting economic benefits of addressing climate change may motivate certain individuals. The present study extended previous research by examining how legacy and economic motivations can be leveraged to overcome this barrier and increase attitudinal and behavioral support to address climate change, and determine which demographic groups respond to each motivation. Using a between-subjects posttest only design, 422 adults recruited through Amazon’s MTurk were randomly assigned to a legacy, economic or control motivation condition containing information about climate change. Contrary to prediction the findings revealed no significant main effect of motivation condition on our behavioral intention and attitude questionnaire measures. Per our prediction there was a significant interaction effect of gender by motivation, indicating women expressed more positive intentions in the legacy condition than men; however, this was also true in the economic condition. Contrary to prediction, parents indicated more positive intentions in the economic condition, and non-parents were more motivated by the legacy condition. Additionally, participants with college or more education expressed more positive attitudes towards climate change in the legacy motivation than those in the control. No other significant interaction effects were found for the other demographic groups by condition (political affiliation and income), and small sample size issues prevented certain analyses. These findings add to on-going research informing education and communication efforts on climate change, and future research should continue to investigate how specific motivations can be successfully leveraged to mobilize change.