The Climate Battle in America: War metaphors alarm Republicans but Democrats more likely to act

Abstract

Metaphorical frames are commonly used in public discourse in the United States of America to communicate about climate change and promote climate action. Previous work found climate metaphors to resonate more so with Democrats than with Republicans. Democrats are also more likely to increase their support for climate action. The present study investigated if tailoring climate metaphors to conservatives’ affective domain and personality traits may trigger metaphor realisation. It experimentally tested, for the first time, if a war frame for climate change which better fits with conservatives’ worldview, can induce fear and anger, and if these emotions alongside personality trait aggressiveness predict increasing support for climate action in both liberal (n = 63) and conservative (n = 63) respondents. The findings showed that the war frame induced fear in both groups, especially among Republicans, but not anger, and that it directly impacted climate attitudes, primarily among Democrats. Trait aggressiveness predicted lower support for climate action at baseline but did not predict attitudinal changes. These novel findings show conservatives are not climate apathetic and encourage further research into how the fear triggered by climate metaphors can be channelled into attitudinal changes in climate inactive populations.

Keywords

metaphor; metaphorical framing; climate change; trait aggressiveness; fear

Published in

Metaphor and the social world
2025

SLU Authors

• Martinez Cruz, Adan

  • Department of Forest Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Comparative Language Studies and Linguistics
Psychology (excluding Applied Psychology)
Media and Communication Studies

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.24015.gae

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/141542