The effect of art and science in shaping attitudes towards climate change

Climate change is an exigent problem which requires a substantial increase in action to mitigate. It has been suggested that art may shape attitudes towards climate change through evoking emotions which influence system 1 judgements. The current study investigated whether science or art-based auditory stimuli influenced attitudes towards climate change. 134 online participants were exposed to one of four stimuli conditions: climate change music, climate change music and science, non-climate change music and science, or science only. Participant's completed pre- and post-stimuli exposure measures of implicit and explicit Biospheric attitudes, positive and negative affect and cultural cognition worldview. Between-group analyses indicated that post-stimuli Biospheric implicit and explicit attitudes were significantly higher, and positive affect lower, irrespective of stimuli exposure. Within-group analyses suggested exposure to science only shaped the highest increase in Biospheric attitudes, climate change music only the lowest, and music (climate change or neutral, with or without science) significantly decreased positive affect. The implications of the current study for climate change communicators are that selected combinations of climate change music and science information can shape Biospheric attitudes, and whilst positive affect can be decreased by exposure to these mediums it does not directly relate to attitude change levels.