Enhancing Climate-Friendly Policy Support Through VR-Based Communication on Climate Change

Mitigating climate change through the adoption of cleaner technologies and reducing energy- intensive activities requires not only attitudinal and behavioral shifts from individuals but also their support for critical policy reforms. This paper addresses the broader question: How does the presentation of climate change-related information influence individuals' policy preferences? Prior studies show that virtual reality (VR) experiences on climate change increase awareness of its impacts, and that correcting climate change misinformation in VR—as opposed to social media—leads to lower skepticism, greater confidence in its existence, and stronger beliefs in human causation. However, it remains unclear whether these interventions also align individuals' policy preferences with improvements in their beliefs and attitudes. Our research examines the effectiveness of immersive VR experiences depicting climate change scenarios, as well as VR-based misinformation correction, in promoting support for climate-friendly policies. We focus on policies such as raising fossil fuel taxes, subsidizing renewable energy (e.g., wind and solar), and regulating energy- inefficient consumer technologies. Through either VR simulations or a social media simulator feed, participants are exposed to potential future impacts, like farmland degradation from rising temperatures and sea-level rise affecting communities and ecosystems. Using a pre- test, post-test mixed experimental design that span over a month, we compare the influence of VR versus a social media simulator on climate-friendly policy support. Additionally, we assess how VR impacts climate anxiety and the perceived psychological distance of climate change, and how these factors in turn influence policy support. We expect VR interventions to be more effective in fostering policy support by increasing climate anxiety and reducing psychological distance. Furthermore, we investigate whether VR’s ability to lower skepticism and increase certainty about climate change correlates with support for climate-friendly policies. We argue that the study has both theoretical and practical significance for effective political communication on climate change, offering insights that can help drive policy change from the grassroots level.