Doctoral Dissertation Research in DRMS: Stories that Stick: Cultural Narrative and Mass Opinions on Climate Change

气候变化很容易被认为是美国面临的最具争议和最紧迫的政策问题之一。尽管对气候变化现实的科学观点显示出高度一致，但公众中有相当一部分人拒绝接受这些科学家的说法。为什么？目前社会科学对这种意见分歧的解释往往集中在公众缺乏准确知识或媒体误导公众的偏见上。这些解释集中在消息结构的影响上，但没有考虑到与这些消息结构最确定地相互作用的个体内部的特征。本文针对这一认识鸿沟，将两种既能解释个体内部因素，又能解释观点形成和改变的外部刺激的理论融合在一起，形成了一个文化叙事模型。具体地说，文化理论衡量标准评估个体的文化倾向，而叙事则提供信息结构理论。这一模型是通过对2500多名具有全国代表性的受访者进行基于网络的实验操作来测试的。在其他发现中，CNM可能表明，叙事结构在帮助受访者形成对群体的情感反应、确定气候变化的威胁有多大以及受访者对气候变化威胁采取行动的意愿方面发挥着重要作用。这个项目的一个更广泛的影响是，新知识应该通过其对风险传播者的效用而有益于社会。

Climate change is easily identified as one of the most contentious and pressing policy problems facing the United States. While scientific opinions on the reality of climate change show high levels of agreement, a non-trivial component of the public rejects the claims of these scientists. Why? Current social science explanations of this divergence in opinion have tended to focus on either the public's lack of accurate knowledge or media bias that misleads the public. These explanations focus on message structure influence, but fail to account for characteristics internal to the individual that most certainly interact with these message structures. This dissertation addresses this gap in our knowledge.Two theories that account for both individual internal factors and external stimuli in opinion formation and change are merged to create a Cultural Narrative Model (CNM). Specifically, Cultural Theory metrics assess individual cultural predispositions, while narrative provides the message structuring theory. This model is tested using a web-based experimental manipulation of over 2500 nationally representative respondents. Among other findings, the CNM may suggest that narrative structure plays a significant role in helping respondents develop emotional responses to groups, determining how much of a threat climate change is, and, how willing a respondent is to act on the threat of climate change. One broader impact of this project is that the new knowledge should be beneficial to society through its utility to risk communicators.