Up to the sky, down to the earth: feeling, thinking, and acting on climate change

As visual evidence of pollution and global warming becomes more visible on social media, understanding its impact on public responses to sustainability is crucial. The present study examined how emotion-regulation strategies influence emotions towards climate change imagery and pro-environmental behavioral intention, while accounting for climate change skepticism. Instagram users in Indonesia (N = 501; 82.5% female; M age = 30.81, SD age = 7.38) utilized mindful emotion regulation, reappraisal, suppression, or distraction during the image viewing task. As expected, mindful emotion regulation predicted more effective integral emotions, while integral emotion ratings predicted higher pro-environmental intentions. However, these ratings did not mediate the effect of emotion-regulation strategies on intention. The benefit of mindful emotion regulation was unexpectedly undermined by skepticism, resulting in a lower intention to act. The reappraisal strategy followed closely behind, whereas the presumably non-adaptive suppression and distraction strategies were unaffected by skepticism. The interplay between emotion regulation and cognitive effort is essential in climate change communication.