Climate change is a global crisis that requires immediate action to prevent negative future outcomes. However, even people who are concerned about climate change may fail to take action because they perceive climate change as a threat that is distant, abstract, or not self-relevant. How can we bridge this gap between our present actions and future outcomes?

In a series of behavioral experiments, we tested interventions that aimed to overcome these barriers by guiding individuals to imagine future scenarios. In an initial study (part of a broader "intervention tournament"), we tested four variants of an episodic simulation (i.e., guided imagination) intervention, in which participants vividly imagined a future scenario related to climate change. We varied the motivational framing (Prevention vs. Promotion) and self-relevance (Self vs. Other focus) of the imagined scenarios. Imagining oneself experiencing a negative future scenario (Prevention-Self condition) broadly increased intentions to engage in pro-environmental behaviors, motivating individual and collective action, whereas imagining a positive future (Promotion conditions) increased the perceived impact of taking action. The Prevention-Self intervention was actually the leading strategy for motivating action, among all 11 interventions tested in our tournament!

 In a second preregistered study, we replicated the key effect of Prevention-Self on action intentions and demonstrated that this effect was mediated by negative affect induced by the imagination exercise. We also explored multi-part interventions that combined the Prevention-Self imagination task with other tasks, like action planning or taking an "impact quiz" about pro-environmental behaviors. However, the standalone imagination exercise was the most effective! Overall, we show that imagining the future of climate change—particularly a self-relevant, negative scenario—is an effective strategy to motivate climate action.