Bridging psychological distance: The impact of immersive media on distant and proximal environmental issues

The growing psychological distance from environmental issues is often used to explain the lack of pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors in today's society. According to construal level theory, individuals might perceive distant issues as more abstract and personally non-relevant, compared with issues they experience directly. Consequently, this experimental study (N = 112) analyzes whether immersive media, such as omnidirectional 360° videos, may be a promising approach for decreasing individuals' psychological distance and increasing personal relevance as well as perceived risk severity and behavioral intentions concerning environmental issues. The results indicate that higher levels of technological immersiveness may be especially well suited to communicate the severity of distant risks and enhance pro-environmental behavioral intentions by simulating direct experiences; however, higher levels of immersiveness seem to be detrimental for issues that were already perceived as proximal and thus may be considered too close for comfort.