Skip to content
DraconiticResearch
Search Sources API
203,952 studies31 sourcesUpdated 47 min ago
Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0Nature Climate Change

Political affiliation impacts climate attention and choice beyond extreme weather exposure

  • Annika M. Wyss1
  • Emmanuel T. Guizar Rosales1
  • Michael Schulte-Mecklenbeck2,3
  • Julie Buchs1
  • Ulf J. J. Hahnel4,5
  • Daria Knoch1
5 affiliations
  1. 1Department of Social Neuroscience and Social Psychology, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
  2. 2Department of Consumer Behavior, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
  3. 3Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
  4. 4School of Sustainability, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Lüneburg, Germany
  5. 5Faculty of Psychology, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
Read full textPDFDOICite

Abstract

Political polarization and increasing exposure to extreme weather can shape public engagement with climate change, yet the underlying psychological mechanisms remain unclear. In this Registered Report, we examine how political affiliation, extreme weather exposure and subjective attribution influence climate-relevant information search and decision-making in a US sample (N = 1,451). We combined a process-tracing paradigm within an incentivized decision task involving real carbon emissions with objective data on extreme weather exposure. Democrats attended more to carbon emission information and made more pro-climate choices than Republicans, with no evidence of moderation by objective extreme weather exposure. The subjective attribution of extreme weather to climate change was associated with greater attention to carbon information, more pro-climate choices and moderated the effects of exposure on both outcomes. These findings highlight the importance of political affiliation in climate-relevant decision-making and suggest that extreme weather effects depend less on exposure itself than on how these experiences are interpreted.

Related

  1. Party affiliation, political ideology, views on democracy and society, and support for political violence in the United States of America: findings from a nationally representative survey
    Garen J. Wintemute, Andrew Crawford, Sonia L. Robinson +7
    PLOS OnePeer-reviewedCC BY 4.0Epidemiology & public healthPLOS
  2. Climate change impacts on hydrology and socio-environmental exposure across the Amazon Basin
    Rocío Sánchez Maldonado, Silvia Benítez, Michaela Carvajal +4
    Scientific ReportsPeer-reviewedCC BY 4.0Full textHydrology & soilsCrossref
  3. Climate urgency enables political alignment for Latin American power integration.
    Luis Ramírez, Gerardo Blanco, Felipe Sepulveda +3
    Nature communicationsPeer-reviewedCC BYFull textEurope PMC
  4. Afraid to help others? understanding the relationship between organisational political climate and older workers' helping behaviour.
    Guodong Cui, Zhu Li
    BMC psychologyPeer-reviewedCC BY-NC-NDFull textEurope PMCPMC
  5. The silent storm: How climate, food commodity prices, and political stability fuel Somalia’s inflation crisis
    Abdimalik Ali Warsame, Khadar Ahmed Dirie, Amir Mohamud Mohamed
    PLOS OnePeer-reviewedCC BY 4.0Full textGeneral biochemistryGeneral biologyPLOSPMC

Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{wyss2026political,
  title = {{Political affiliation impacts climate attention and choice beyond extreme weather exposure}},
  author = {Annika M. Wyss and Emmanuel T. Guizar Rosales and Michael Schulte-Mecklenbeck and Julie Buchs and Ulf J. J. Hahnel and Daria Knoch},
  journal = {Nature Climate Change},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.1038/s41558-026-02765-z},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-026-02765-z},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Political affiliation impacts climate attention and choice beyond extreme weather exposure
AU  - Annika M. Wyss
AU  - Emmanuel T. Guizar Rosales
AU  - Michael Schulte-Mecklenbeck
AU  - Julie Buchs
AU  - Ulf J. J. Hahnel
AU  - Daria Knoch
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/16
JO  - Nature Climate Change
DO  - 10.1038/s41558-026-02765-z
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-026-02765-z
AB  - Political polarization and increasing exposure to extreme weather can shape public engagement with climate change, yet the underlying psychological mechanisms remain unclear. In this Registered Report, we examine how political affiliation, extreme weather exposure and subjective attribution influence climate-relevant information search and decision-making in a US sample (N = 1,451). We combined a process-tracing paradigm within an incentivized decision task involving real carbon emissions with objective data on extreme weather exposure. Democrats attended more to carbon emission information and made more pro-climate choices than Republicans, with no evidence of moderation by objective extreme weather exposure. The subjective attribution of extreme weather to climate change was associated with greater attention to carbon information, more pro-climate choices and moderated the effects of exposure on both outcomes. These findings highlight the importance of political affiliation in climate-relevant decision-making and suggest that extreme weather effects depend less on exposure itself than on how these experiences are interpreted.
SN  - 1758-678X
SN  - 1758-6798
ER  -