Understanding the relationship between sharing personal anecdotes, warmth, curiosity, risk perception and mitigation in communicating the threat of climate change

While most Americans believes in climate change, to elicit action, communicators should use strategies to convey risks. One strategy is to cognitively engage individuals by eliciting curiosity. Previous studies have shown that individuals with higher science curiosity are more likely to perceive the risk of climate change. This study uses scientists' act of sharing personal anecdotes to elicit curiosity and examines the effect of scientist's traits on risk perception. Results show that anecdotes do not affect any of the variables. However, there is a positive relationship between curiosity and risk perception, and between trust in scientists and risk perception.