Virtue or passion? How moral frames in climate change appeals elicit emotions and change opinions

Research on climate change debates shows that the usage of moral frames can sway opinions on climate change, especially for those who agree with the moral frame. Affect and emotions have also been considered important drivers of climate change perception. While it is argued that moral frames are more effective when they invoke strong moral emotions, thus far little is known about the way in which we can conceptualize existing viewpoints in the climate debate as moral frames, and how the extent to which different moral climate frames affect climate opinions is dependent on the arousal of (specific) emotions. The main objective of this study is to bring attention to the link between moral framing, emotions and opinion in real-life climate change discourses. We do this in two studies. First, based on a qualitative analysis of climate change debates in the European Parliament (1994-2022) we discern three different viewpoints on causes of and solutions to climate change: the mainstream, the green-left, and the populist right viewpoint. Grounded in moral framing research and moral foundations theory, we discuss how we can conceptualize these distinct viewpoints on the causes and solutions of climate change as distinct moral appeals, and how these are related to emotions. In a second study, we investigate how these appeals affect emotions and climate opinions among the general public. We run a 1x4-between-subjects survey experiment among a diverse sample of Dutch citizens (n = 1750) to contribute to the clarification of the relation between moral framing, emotions, and opinion change in climate change discourses. We expose respondents to one of the three moral frames or a control text, randomly varying whether respondents are exposed to an ideologically congruent or an incongruent frame. We investigate whether the moral frames trigger more emotions than the non-moral frame and explore whether the frames elicit the emotions and increase agreement with the diagnosis and policy solutions that are embedded in them. We additionally explore whether the effectiveness of each frame persuading respondents is dependent upon the emotion that is elicited. Finally, we expect that the impact of these different frames on emotions and opinions likely depends on ideological agreement with the moral argumentation, and compare the extent to which frame congruency moderates the impact of moral climate frames. The study will contribute to our understanding of the impact of existing moral frames in climate debates.