Overview
- The Cornell monograph, published in March 2026, reports six preregistered experiments with nearly 6,400 U.S. participants reacting to climate change messages in simulated news, texts, and TikTok posts.
- Across platforms, people judged expressions of fear or sadness as less authentic and less appropriate than neutral, stoic statements.
- Seeing a person’s sad face in a TikTok-style screenshot triggered the strongest doubts about sincerity compared with reading the same emotion in text.
- Political agreement did little to soften the reaction, and skepticism focused on the speaker rather than reducing concern about climate change.
- The authors say emotional posts remain useful for finding community and personal catharsis, though they are a weak strategy for persuading broader audiences.