Journalism doesn’t just inform the public— it shapes how people feel, what they remember and how they act. In a political climate where many people already feel powerless about climate change, news framing can reinforce doomism and despair, or support meaningful collective action. Journalists can learn from research based on psychology and neuroscience to understand how to impact readers beyond the moment they see a headline. In this infographic, Kirsten Lydic summarizes key points from research led by Dr. Alyssa Sinclair. While this research centers on the context of climate change, its lessons are broader; providing important insights for journalists writing on any charged and actionable issue.
Read the original research here: https://osf.io/pzkfd_v3
Allie Sinclair (she/her) is an incoming Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Rice University. She is a cognitive neuroscientist who studies how people update their memories, beliefs, and behaviors in lab and real-world settings. Her expertise spans learning and memory, belief and behavior change, affect, and information consumption.
Kirsten O. Lydic is a doctoral student at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and a steering committee member at the Center for Media at Risk. Her work lies at the intersection of cognitive science and community-engaged social research, using mixed methods to (a) characterize and predict processes of social change and (b) develop intervention tools to promote civic and political engagement.
