Paying attention to climate change: Positive images of climate change solutions capture attention

The impact of anthropogenic climate change is an ever-pressing challenge facing the global community. Making changes to minimize the negative effects of climate change is critical. Visual images of climate change are emotionally salient and have been found to capture attention. However, the degree to which emotional valence (i.e., positive or negative) and aspect of climate change (i.e., potential cause, effect, or solution) influence attentional capture by climate change relevant images is unknown. Across three experiments, we addressed this knowledge gap by measuring attention to these types of images with a dot-probe task. We found a consistent capture of attention by emotionally positive images of climate change solutions (e.g., windmills and solar panels), but not emotionally negative images of causes (e.g., industrial pollution) and effects (e.g., natural disasters and melting polar ice caps) of climate change. Negative images of climate change were found to produce a general slowing of reaction time, which may reflect a freezing response. Individual differences in attentional capture by climate change images were related to environmental disposition. Our results suggest that positive images of climate change solutions are attention grabbing and in turn may be the most suitable images to motivate environmentally friendly action or behavior.