Ran Duan and Anthony Van Witsen are studying how the related loss/gain frames and local/distant frames may influence people’s perceptions of climate change issues.
The work could help inform support for environmental capacity building. The pair of Knight Center doctoral students want to investigate how individual perceptions contribute to the capacity of government to tackle climate change.
At a recent MSU Environmental Science and Policy Program poster presentation, Adam Zwickle, who is an assistant professor in School of Criminal Justice, suggested that the researchers consider  “avoiding loss” as a frame.   Jinhua Zhao, the director of the ESPP program, suggested looking at economic gaming which is a form of experimental research on how people make economic choices.
The researchers say such suggestions may help them broadly justify how environmental awareness contributes to environmental capacity building.