Climate change: no laughing matter? Using humor to prevent and correct misinformation

Climate change communication faces major psychological challenges: how can we engage people emotionally without creating fear, helplessness, or avoidance? At the same time, misinformation about climate change spreads rapidly through social media and contributes to public skepticism and polarization.

This project explores humor as an innovative tool for climate communication and misinformation prevention. Rather than relying solely on fear-based messages, we investigate whether humor can help people process climate information more openly, reduce defensiveness, and better recognize misleading claims. Humor may also help people remember corrective information more effectively by creating surprise and new perspectives.

Across several experimental studies, we examine how different forms of humor influence reactions to climate misinformation, emotional responses, memory, belief accuracy, and support for climate action. We compare humorous approaches with fear-based communication and test different types of humor, including satire, absurd humor, and benevolent humor.

By combining psychology, emotion research, and climate communication, this project aims to develop more effective and emotionally sustainable ways to engage the public with climate change while helping counter misinformation.