Hope or fear? Children’s responses to climate change fiction

Abstract

Although not necessarily intended to persuade, climate fiction narratives can guide individuals in their attitudes and emotions, also in educational settings. An open question is which emotions such narratives should communicate to make an impact, especially for children. We conducted an experiment where 142 children listened to either hopeful or fearful text fragments of Hannah Gold’s children’s climate fiction book The Last Bear (2021). We then measured if and how this narrative experience affected the children’s emotions, attitudes, and intentions towards climate change, as a function of the condition they were in. The results indicate that listening to the text fragments did not affect children’s attitudes but slightly decreased their intention to engage in climate change mitigating behavior, irrespective of hope or fear. The children furthermore reported a variety of emotions after listening. We discuss the impact of climate narratives for children, also considering whether hope and fear can effectively be investigated as two separate emotions.