‘But what about the (grand)children?’ Effects of Future Thinking on Climate Action

Envisioning the future is crucial to motivating climate protection. The content and structure of future-related thoughts may influence people’s future vision and climate action (policy acceptance and political participation intention). To test assumptions derived from Query Theory (QT), two online experiments had participants think about the future in different ways. In Study 1 (N = 1,049), participants listed future thoughts freely (nondirected) or were instructed to begin with either positive or negative thoughts. Those who listed nondirected thoughts had a more negative future vision than the other groups. They were more likely to accept climate policies than a control group without thought listing, and so were those who listed positive thoughts first. Political participation intentions remained unaffected by thought listing. Most listed thoughts were climate related; people listed more negative than positive thoughts and tended to list negative thoughts first. Study 2 (N = 517) compared nondirected thinking with a control group without thought listing. While there were no group differences for future vision and climate action, participants who naturally began with positive thoughts envisioned the future more positively. A higher proportion of positive thoughts was positively associated with all outcome variables. The order of thoughts displayed a curvilinear relationship with policy acceptance and participation intention. Participants who listed either positive or negative thoughts showed greater readiness to act than those with randomly dispersed thoughts. Overall, the findings offer partial support for QT and suggest that structured future thinking may affect climate action, while the underlying mechanisms remain yet to be understood.