Future tense and pro-environmental behavior (Follow-up study)

In a between-subject design, we will manipulate the use of future time referencing in German language (weak-FTR vs. strong-FTR, respectively present tense vs. future tense marking) in order to examine the potential mechanisms of FTR to affect pro-environmental behavior. The linguistic manipulation is embedded into a climate change scenario. In the weak-FTR treatment, subjects receive a German description of the climate change scenario in present tense, with no future time references used, i.e., all future events are described in the present tense. In the strong-FTR treatment, the climate change scenario is also described in German, but with strong future markers (“wird/werden” + verb) to refer to future events.

2022-03-28

2022-05-15

Future orientation, perception of certainty of climate change consequences, perception of efficacy of climate change mitigation measures, perception of temporal distance to climate change consequences, hope in relation to climate change, perception of time precision of climate change consequences.

Perception of certainty of effects of climate change mitigation measures, perception of temporal distance of effects of climate change mitigation measures, perception of time precision of climate change mitigation measures

In a between-subject design, we will manipulate the use of future time referencing in German language (weak-FTR vs. strong-FTR, respectively present tense vs. future tense marking) in order to examine the potential mechanisms of FTR to affect pro-environmental behavior. The linguistic manipulation is embedded into a climate change scenario. In the weak-FTR treatment, subjects receive a German description of the climate change scenario in present tense, with no future time references used, i.e., all future events are described in the present tense. In the strong-FTR treatment, the climate change scenario is also described in German, but with strong future markers (“wird/werden” + verb) to refer to future events. After reading the climate change scenario, participants will complete a series of self-report scales on perception of certainty of climate change consequences and effects of climate change mitigation measures, perception of efficacy of climate change mitigation measures, perception of temporal distance to climate change consequences and effects of climate change mitigation measures, future orientation, hope in climate change mitigation as well as perception of time precision of climate change consequences.

Our outcome measurements allow us to investigate four potential mechanisms:

The first proposed mechanism is that FTR markers might increase an individual‘s future orientation. As future orientation is associated with attaching importance to future consequences of present actions and attempting to restrain from fulfilling immediate desires by investing in the future, increased future orientation might predict pro-environmental behavior.

An alternative mechanism might be that people perceive the future consequences of climate change as more certain/given when the future negative impacts of climate change are expressed in the present tense (=weak-FTR). As a result, they might have less hope in mitigating climate change and also perceive the effectiveness of mitigating climate change as lower, leading to less pro-environmental behavior.

A third plausible mechanism is based on the construal level theory. FTR markers may shift the processing of climate change to a higher construal level, because individuals exposed to the future tense might perceive a greater temporal distance of the future consequences of climate change. If this is the case, compared to individuals in the weak FTR treatment, individuals in the strong FTR treatment might tend to process information more abstractly and give analytical arguments more weight. This could increase people’s understanding of the human contribution to climate change as well as its negative consequences. This increased problem awareness could lead to more pro-environmental behavior.

A fourth mechanism is based on the argument that the use of strong-FTR markers makes future events perceived as more precise in timing and more certain. Since the impact of climate change is associated with a high degree of uncertainty in the temporal dimension, which is shown to harm climate action, increasing timing precision and certainty may lead to more pro-environmental behavior.

We will exclude subjects who:
- complete the task in equal to or less than 2 minutes
- do not complete the task within 30 minutes of starting;
- fail crucial attention checks;
- give inconsistent answers to the question regarding the earliest and latest possible point in time of the occurcence of irreversible climate impacts
We will also conduct an analysis excluding subjects who did not answer the control question correctly the first time.

Computer (online experiment)

Individual

No

We invite all 780 participants who participated and have fulfilled the criteria for the main analysis of the previous within language study (see AEARCTR-0008477). Final sample size depends on how many people accept participation in this follow-up study.

We invite all 780 participants who participated and have fulfilled the criteria for the main analysis of the previous within language study (see AEARCTR-0008477). Final sample size depends on how many people accept participation in this follow-up study.

Depending on the retargeting success rate of participants in the previous study.