Bystander of Sandstorm: The Psychological Bias of Public Opinion to Environmental Events

35 Pages Posted: 14 Jan 2022

See all articles by Dongmin Kong

Dongmin Kong

School of Economics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology

Chenhao Liu

Peking University - Guanghua School of Management

Ling Han

Peking University

Hengxing Yin

Peking University

Date Written: January 14, 2022

Abstract

This study examines the psychological effect of public opinion on extreme environmental events. Using the sandstorm that hit China in the spring of 2021 as a natural experiment, we measure public opinion based on daily microblogs related to the environment published on Sina Weibo and show that local air pollution has a significant effect on environmental public opinion in cities in sandstorm-affected and nonaffected areas. Focusing on the cities in the nonaffected area, we find that a 10-unit increase in local air pollution generates a 3.83% increase in bystander public opinion response to the sandstorm event. We consider a range of rational mechanisms, such as the learning effect, mutual influence, and inattention, but none can fully explain the effect. Moreover, we explore the psychological mechanism and find that our results are consistent with projection effects.

Keywords: psychological effect, projection bias, public opinion, media, local air pollution

Suggested Citation

Kong, Dongmin and Liu, Chenhao and Han, Ling and Yin, Hengxing, Bystander of Sandstorm: The Psychological Bias of Public Opinion to Environmental Events (January 14, 2022). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4008777 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4008777

Dongmin Kong (Contact Author)

School of Economics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology ( email )

Bldg. of Econ. School, Louyu Rd. 1037#
HUST, Hongshan Dist.
Wuhan, Hubei 430074
China

Chenhao Liu

Peking University - Guanghua School of Management ( email )

Ling Han

Peking University ( email )

Hengxing Yin

Peking University ( email )

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