The Role of Linguistic Priming and Framing in Shaping Climate Change Perceptions and Pro-Environmental Behaviors in Pakistani Youth

The rising global issue of the climate crisis demands powerful communication approaches that help attract the population, especially young people, to the process of climate change. This paper discusses how linguistic priming and message framing influence perceptions of Pakistani youth towards climate change and pro-environmental behaviors. The 200-participant study employed a 2x2 between-participants factorial design, presenting participants with two linguistics primes (pollution vs. renewable energy) and message frames (gain vs. loss) combinations to measure their risk perception, support for climate policies, and intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior. The paper tested three hypotheses, i.e., (1) participants exposes to renewable energy primes will lead to lower risk perception compared to pollution primes, and (2) gaining frames messages would cause participants to be more willing to endorse climate policy than losing frames messages, and (3) Participants exposed to renewable energy primes and gain-framed messages will exhibit the highest willingness to adopt pro-environmental behaviors. The findings showed that renewable energy primes had lowered the perception of risk, whereas the gain frames had raised approval towards climate policies. Nevertheless, the most significant amount of willingness to take an action was recorded in the pollution + gain frame condition, which partially confirms the hypothesis. The results of this study indicate that both linguistic priming and message framing are important elements in influencing the attitudes of youth towards climate change. Furthermore, message framing should be adapted on an individual basis to be effective in Pakistan, where urgency and solution-oriented messages are crucial factors in climate communication.