Nature and Morality

Extending Moral Concern: Applications to Climate and Conservation

Biodiversity and cultural diversity are morally valued (British Journal of Social Psychology, 2025)

Humanity is facing rapid declines in both biodiversity and cultural diversity. As effective conservation policies often require strong public support, it is critical to understand whether individuals view diversity loss through a moral lens and whether they value diversity for its own sake, independent from instrumental or individual-centric concerns. Across two studies (N = 796), we found that individuals assigned moral value to both biodiversity and cultural diversity. Individuals assigned greater moral value to animals, plants and – to a lesser extent – languages when diversity was threatened, compared to when it was not threatened, despite an equal number of entities at risk, and they were willing to sacrifice a large number of these entities to prevent a loss in diversity. Additionally, we found (N = 12,000) that a general concern for diversity underlies concern for both biodiversity and cultural diversity. These findings suggest that emphasizing the inherent value of diversity may be effective for increasing public support for conservation of diversity.

Effects of communicating the rise of climate migration on public perceptions of climate change and migration (Journal of Environmental Psychology, 2024)

Climate change-induced migration is a rapidly increasing phenomenon estimated to affect millions of people in the coming decades. With increasing media coverage of climate migration, including within the United States, it is critical to understand how to effectively communicate about this issue. In two high-powered experiments of U.S. Democrats and Republicans (& leaners; Study 1: N = 1452; Study 2: N = 1873), we test the effects of fictional news coverage about domestic and international climate-induced migration on climate change and migration risk perceptions, warmth toward migrants, and policy support. We also tested whether including a personal story about a specific migrant alongside numerical trends could increase support for climate change mitigation and aiding potential migrants. Impacts on climate outcomes were minimal: in Study 1, those exposed to different message frames reported similar climate policy support and risk perception in Study 1, and, in Study 2, domestic (but not international) climate migration coverage slightly increased climate risk perceptions and marginally increased mitigation policy support compared to a no-message baseline. In both studies, international migration was perceived as riskier to Americans than domestic migration, and coverage of international migration heighted this perceived risk. Coverage of domestic climate migration, on the other hand, did not boost risk perceptions of that type of migration. Furthermore, coverage of international climate migration led to greater support for adaptation infrastructure to help potential migrants stay home but did not affect support for policies to help migration. Contrary to expectations, the inclusion of personal stories did not affect warmth toward migrants in either study. Political affiliation dominated associations with all climate change and migration outcomes, likely obscuring potential framing effects. These results suggest that coverage about climate-induced migration may face challenges in shifting entrenched public opinion and policy support. Communicators should be aware of the limitations of using this type of coverage to promote constructive actions to address climate change and migration.

Addressing climate change with behavioral science: A global intervention tournament in 63 countries (Science Advances, 2024)

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions’ effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior—several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people’s initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors.

An examination of how six reasons for valuing nature are endorsed and associated with pro-environmental behavior across 12 countries (Scientific Reports, 2023)

Balanced samples from 12 countries (N = 12,000) were surveyed about their reasons for valuing nature and pro-environmental behaviors. Results showed that people were least likely to endorse moral-based reasons for valuing nature, as compared to five other reasons (wellbeing benefits, nature’s intrinsic value, health benefits, economic value, identity-based reasons). However, moral- and identity-based reasons (relative to the other four reasons) for valuing nature were the strongest predictors of pro-environmental behavior across three different methods (correlations, linear mixed models, and relative importance analysis) and two pro-environmental behavior categories (consumer behavior and activism). In other words, the reasons for valuing nature most associated with pro-environmental behavior also garnered the weakest support, presenting a potential dilemma for those hoping to leverage values to promote pro-environmental behavior. We also identify a possible mechanism (awareness of one’s environmental impact) to explain why moral- and identity-based reasons for valuing nature best predict behavior. Finally, we examine between-country variability in the endorsement of the six reasons and the reasons’ associations with pro-environmental behaviors, and country-level factors that may explain between-country variability in these outcomes. We discuss these results in the context of broader literature that has focused on an intrinsic vs. instrumental valuation of nature dichotomy.

Climate change-induced immigration to the US has mixed influences on public support for climate change and migrants (Climactic Change, 2023)

Global climate change has begun to cause widespread forced migration and drivers of this phenomenon are expected to intensify in the future, which is likely to result in increased immigration to countries in the Global North such as the USA. Here, two studies examine how belief in this phenomenon could influence Americans’ opinions on climate change and immigration. A correlational pilot study demonstrated that belief in climate-immigration was associated with greater climate change concerns and policy support. It was also associated with attributing more blame to immigrations for their predicament, especially among Republicans. This provides initial correlational evidence that that awareness of climate-induced migration is associated with pro-social responses. However, an experimental messaging study demonstrated that reading about climate-induced immigration (vs. immigration not linked to climate change) did not change participants’ climate concerns or climate policy support. Instead, reading about climate-induced immigration resulted in more negative attitudes toward immigrants. Our findings suggest that, as this issue becomes more salient in political discourse, policymakers, reporters, advocates, and other communicators should attend to the possibility of unintended negative consequences of their messages. Future research is needed to determine how to foster support on climate action while minimizing backlash against immigrants.

The moral significance of aesthetics in nature imagery (Psychological Science, 2022)

To solicit support for nature and wildlife conservation, mission-driven organizations rely on professional nature and wildlife imagery in their media outlets and campaigns. We investigate whether and why the aesthetics of images increase social media engagement and the moral standing of nature and wildlife. In Study 1 (N = 782 U.S. residents), we train a neural network to predict image aesthetics in National Geographic Instagram data. We find a significant relationship between image aesthetics and social media engagement and identify image attributes influencing aesthetics. In Study 2 (N = 775 U.S. residents), we establish the causal effect of aesthetics on i) social media engagement and ii) moral standing and demonstrate a mediating role of self-transcendent emotions (awe and inspiration) and purity intuitions. Study 3 (N = 406 U.S. residents) replicates the results and examines the importance of beauty as a boundary condition. Our research demonstrates the moral significance of image aesthetics.