jsPsych plugin:
Image Word Slider Response
Summary
A jsPsych module for collecting responses to image–word pairs using a slider. It displays an image on the left, a word on the right, and a slider scale below them. The plugin is based on Josh de Leeuw's jsPsychImageSliderResponse plugin and Daiichiro Kuroki's jsPsychSurveyImageLikert plugin.
Code
To access the code and a demo, please check the repository on Github: https://github.com/CGaele/jsPsychImageWordSliderResponse
License
jsPsych Image Word Slider Response © 2025 by Claudia Gaele is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Get the code here: github.com/CGaele/jsPsychImageWordSliderResponse
The WAR metaphor of climate change
with Dr Lacey Okonski and Dr Adan L. Martinez-Cruz
Summary
Metaphors, such as describing climate change as “Mother Earth venting,” have been commonly used in public discourse to explain the issue of climate change and motivate climate action. Previous research in the U.S. found that these metaphorical framings resonate more with liberals, who are generally more supportive of climate action, than with conservatives. With this study, we investigated whether a metaphor better aligned with conservative worldviews, personality and cognitive traits —specifically, framing climate change as a “war”—could trigger emotional responses, specifically fear and anger, and whether this might lead to increased support for climate action across the political spectrum. We found that the war metaphor elicited fear in both liberals and conservatives, especially conservatives, but did not evoke anger. This novel finding is particularly interesting given that conservatives did not show increased support for climate action compared to baseline – maintaining social inertia - despite experiencing fear.
Abstract
Metaphorical frames are commonly used in public discourse in the United States of America to communicate about climate change and promote climate action. Previous work found climate metaphors to resonate more so with Democrats than with Republicans. Democrats are also more likely to increase their support for climate action. The present study investigated if tailoring climate metaphors to conservatives’ affective domain and personality traits may trigger metaphor realisation. It experimentally tested, for the first time, if a war frame for climate change which better fits with conservatives’ worldview, can induce fear and anger, and if these emotions alongside personality trait aggressiveness predict increasing support for climate action in both liberal (n = 63) and conservative (n = 63) respondents. The findings showed that the war frame induced fear in both groups, especially among Republicans, but not anger, and that it directly impacted climate attitudes, primarily among Democrats. Trait aggressiveness predicted lower support for climate action at baseline but did not predict attitudinal changes. These novel findings show conservatives are not climate apathetic and encourage further research into how the fear triggered by climate metaphors can be channelled into attitudinal changes in climate inactive populations.
Significance
The war frame of climate change “the war against climate change” proved to be an important tool to explore the nuanced relationship between climate attitudes, beliefs, political ideology, affective responses, and personality trait aggressiveness. This study showed, for the first time, that Republicans can engage with climate communication when this is tailored to their affective and cognitive profile, such as the war metaphorical framing used in this study. As Republicans experienced fear but did not report attitudinal changes, the findings suggest their climate inertia is due to factors other than apathy. The opposite was true for Democrats, so the reason why the metaphorical framing was effective in trigger- ing attitudinal changes cannot be asserted.
