The Role of Psychological Distance in Narrative Transportation and Climate Change Risk Perception

This dissertation examines how manipulating psychological distance in climate change narratives through character perspective (first vs. third person) and spatial distance (near vs. far), influences narrative transportation and risk perception. Grounded in Construal Level Theory (CLT) and the Transportation-Imagery Model, the study tested whether matching construal levels enhances transportation and perceived climate risk. A between-subjects online experiment (N = 328) exposed participants to one of four narrative versions describing an extreme-heat event and measured transportation, perceived risk, political ideology, and prior experience with climate-related events. Results partially supported the hypotheses. Spatial distance significantly affected narrative transportation and indirectly influenced risk perception, while character perspective showed significant effect. Transportation significantly mediated the relationship between spatial distance and risk perception, indicating that proximity cues enhance perceived risk indirectly through transportation. Additionally, transportation mediated the effect of prior experience on risk perception, suggesting that personal experience provides a cognitive and emotional reservoir that facilitates narrative engagement. Political ideology remained the strongest predictor of climate risk perception, moderating the influence of distance cues: Republicans and Independents perceived greater risk from near-distance narratives, whereas Democrats responded more strongly to far-distance framing. The findings refine CLT by showing that psychological distance in narratives operates through indirect, experience-based pathways rather than direct framing effects. They also highlight the persuasive value of spatially close, emotionally concrete stories for fostering engagement, particularly among audiences less responsive to abstract scientific information. Theoretically, this work integrates narrative persuasion, psychological distance, and motivated reasoning frameworks, demonstrating that the alignment between message features and audience processing styles is crucial for effective climate communication.