Who’s in Charge Here: How Linguistic Agency in Climate Messages Shapes Public Interpretations and Responses?

Linguistic agency assignment is an unavoidable yet understudied feature in climate messaging. We propose temporal (moving-time/moving-ego), causal (natural/human), and action (non-agential/human) agency as distinct features targeting three core cognitive demands in climate communication: risk perception, responsibility, and efficacy beliefs. Through a 2 (temporal agency: moving-time vs. moving-ego) × 2 (causal agency: natural vs. human) × 2 (action agency: non-agential vs. human) between-subjects experiment with 1,917 participants, the results showed that moving-time temporal agency amplifies risk perceptions, human causal agency strengthens responsibility, and human action agency increases efficacy. However, inconsistent agency assignments reduce intention and trigger defensive reactions.