Emotional dimensions of climate change messaging in agricultural extension across pacific island communities

Introduction

When a Samoan taro farmer was shown projections of declining rainfall for her region over the next two decades, her first response was not to ask about drought-resistant varieties or irrigation techniques. Instead, she said that the land had always provided, and that talking about its failure felt like speaking ill of a family member. This reaction, deeply emotional and culturally embedded, illustrates why climate change communication in agricultural extension cannot be treated as a simple information transfer problem [1, 2] . Pacific Island communities face some of the most immediate and severe climate impacts globally, including sea level rise, intensifying cyclones, saltwater intrusion into agricultural soils, and shifting rainfall patterns [3] . Agricultural extension services across the Pacific have responded by developing climate-smart agriculture programming, but the communication strategies employed tend to emphasize scientific data and technical recommendations while neglecting the emotional landscape through which farming communities receive these messages [4,5] . Research from health and environmental communication demonstrates that emotional responses to risk messages powerfully shape behavioral outcomes, often more than cognitive processing of factual content [6] . This research examined: (a) what emotional response patterns different climate message frames generated among Pacific Island farming households; (b) which emotional pathways most strongly predicted adaptation behavior intentions; and (c) how cultural identity moderated emotional responses to climate messaging [7,8] .

Materials and Methods

Materials

A convergent mixed-methods design collected data from 203 farming households across Samoa (n = 74), Tonga (n = 68), and Fiji (n = 61) between August 2022 and November 2023. Participants were selected through stratified random sampling from communities with active agricultural extension programs. The experimental component exposed each participant to five climate message versions varying in emotional frame: fear-based, hope-based, cultural identity, economic loss, and community solidarity. Message stimuli were developed in consultation with Pacific communication specialists and pre-tested for equivalence of information content. The structured survey measured emotional responses using a 24-item affective response scale, adaptation intention through 8 items, and cultural worldview through 10 items. Narrative interviews (n = 36, 12 per country) explored emotional experiences in depth. Ethics approval was obtained from the National University of Samoa Research Ethics Committee (Protocol NUS-SOA-2022-011, July 2022).

Methods

Emotional responses were categorized into four primary www.extensionjournal.com domains:

anxiety/concern, motivation/agency, connection/belonging, and helplessness/fatigue. Withinsubjects repeated measures ANOVA compared emotional response profiles across the five message frames. Path analysis tested the mediating role of emotional responses between message framing and adaptation intention.

Moderation analysis examined cultural worldview as a boundary condition. Narrative interview data were analyzed using interpretive phenomenological analysis with two coders (agreement = 0.86). Quantitative analysis used SPSS 28.0 and AMOS 26.0 at p<0.05. Motivation was the strongest emotional mediator between message framing and adaptation intention (indirect effect = 0.27, p<0.001), followed by connection/belonging (0.19). Anxiety showed a weaker but significant mediating effect (0.08), while helplessness produced a non-significant negative indirect effect, suggesting it undermines rather than supports adaptation.

Results

Comprehensive Interpretation

Cultural worldview significantly moderated the relationship between cultural identity framing and emotional response (interaction beta = 0.24, p = 0.003). Participants with stronger traditional cultural orientations showed amplified positive emotional responses to cultural identity and solidarity frames, while those with more individualistic orientations responded more strongly to economic loss framing. Narrative interviews revealed that cultural identity messages activated a sense of ancestral responsibility and intergenerational obligation that participants described as qualitatively different from the motivation generated by hope-based frames.

Discussion

The finding that motivation and connection mediate adaptation intention more strongly than anxiety challenges the widespread reliance on fear-based climate messaging in extension programming [1,6] . While fear appeals generated the highest immediate emotional intensity, they simultaneously produced the most helplessness, creating an emotional profile that the path analysis suggests is counterproductive for sustained adaptation behavior [9,10] . This is consistent with the broader risk communication literature showing that fear without accompanying efficacy information tends to produce avoidance rather than action [11] . The exceptional performance of cultural identity framing in Pacific Island contexts carries implications beyond the region. The combination of high motivation, high connection, and low helplessness represents the most adaptive emotional profile among all frames tested. This pattern likely reflects the deep integration of agriculture with cultural identity in Pacific societies, where farming practices carry spiritual and communal significance beyond their economic function [3,12] . Extension communicators working in communities with strong agricultural cultural traditions may find that anchoring climate messages in cultural identity produces more sustained engagement than either fear or generic hope framings. The moderation by cultural worldview suggests that effective climate communication cannot follow a one-sizefits-all approach. Extension systems serving culturally diverse farming populations may need repertoires of message frames that can be matched to community characteristics rather than standardized messaging applied uniformly [13,14] .

Ethical Considerations

Researching emotional responses to climate messages among communities already experiencing climate impacts raises particular ethical concerns. Participants were exposed to fear-based messaging that could generate genuine distress in communities facing real climate threats. The research protocol included immediate debriefing after each message exposure, access to counseling support through community health workers, and the option to withdraw from any message condition without explanation. Cultural protocols were observed in each country, including consultation with village councils before data collection and sharing of preliminary findings with participating communities. The research team included Pacific Islander researchers in all field activities to ensure cultural sensitivity in both data collection and interpretation. All message stimuli were reviewed by community advisory panels for cultural appropriateness before deployment.

Limitations

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