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Robert Gennaro Sposato

Bio: Robert Gennaro Sposato is an academic researcher from Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt. The author has contributed to research in topics: Climate change & Sustainability. The author has an hindex of 7, co-authored 15 publications receiving 338 citations. Previous affiliations of Robert Gennaro Sposato include Cardiff University & Adria Airways.

Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is shown that direct experience of flooding leads to an overall increased salience of climate change, pronounced emotional responses and greater perceived personal vulnerability and risk perceptions, and the first evidence that direct flooding experience can give rise to behavioural intentions beyond individual sustainability actions.
Abstract: The winter of 2013/2014 saw a series of severe storms hit the UK, leading to widespread flooding, a major emergency response and extensive media exposure. Previous research indicates that experiencing extreme weather events has the potential to heighten engagement with climate change, however the process by which this occurs remains largely unknown, and establishing a clear causal relationship from experience to perceptions is methodologically challenging. The UK winter flooding offered a natural experiment to examine this question in detail. We compare individuals personally affected by flooding (n = 162) to a nationally representative sample (n = 975). We show that direct experience of flooding leads to an overall increased salience of climate change, pronounced emotional responses and greater perceived personal vulnerability and risk perceptions. We also present the first evidence that direct flooding experience can give rise to behavioural intentions beyond individual sustainability actions, including support for mitigation policies, and personal climate adaptation in matters unrelated to the direct experience.

247 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyzed early adopters, potential adopters and non-adopters of electric vehicles (EVs) and found that psychological and socio-demographic factors play a significant role in predicting EV adoption.

81 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper found that subjective attribution of extreme weather events to climate change is a necessary condition for extreme weather experiences to be translated into climate change mitigation responses, and subjective attribution is influenced by the psychological and social contexts in which individuals appraise their experiences with extreme weather.
Abstract: The literature suggests that extreme weather experiences have potential to increase climate change engagement by influencing the way people perceive the proximity and implications of climate change. Yet, limited attention has been directed at investigating how individual differences in the subjective interpretation of extreme weather events as indications of climate change moderate the link between extreme weather experiences and climate change attitudes. This article contends that subjective attribution of extreme weather events to climate change is a necessary condition for extreme weather experiences to be translated into climate change mitigation responses, and that subjective attribution of extreme weather to climate change is influenced by the psychological and social contexts in which individuals appraise their experiences with extreme weather. Using survey data gathered in the aftermath of severe flooding across the UK in winter 2013/2014, personal experience of this flooding event is shown to only directly predict perceived threat from climate change, and indirectly predict climate change mitigation responses, among individuals who subjectively attributed the floods to climate change. Additionally, subjective attribution of the floods to climate change is significantly predicted by pre-existing climate change belief, political affiliation and perceived normative cues. Attempts to harness extreme weather experiences as a route to engaging the public must be attentive to the heterogeneity of opinion on the attributability of extreme weather events to climate change.

69 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the impact of several factors on the stress that commuters experience and clarified possible relations between variables such as control, predictability, the duration of the commute and impedance.
Abstract: Existing research on commuting stress has shown that it is affected by variables such as control, predictability, the duration of the commute and impedance. The present study investigates the impact of several factors on the stress that commuters experience and clarifies possible relations between variables. For the purpose of this study, an online questionnaire was completed by 363 commuters of the Vienna region. The relative strength of the relationship between predictors and commuting stress was determined by multiple regression analysis. Results suggest that control is the most powerful predictor of commuting stress, followed by the duration of the commute, predictability and impedance. Control significantly interacts with the duration of the commute and predictability. Based on these findings a research model is proposed, clearly depicting the moderating impact of the duration of the commute and incorporating a clear distinction between predictability and control.

43 citations


Cited by
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01 Feb 2016

1,970 citations

23 Mar 2010
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyse les relations conceptuelles (imprecises) de la vulnerabilite, de la resilience and de la capacite d'adaptation aux changements climatiques selon le systeme socioecologique (socio-ecologigal systems -SES) afin de comprendre and anticiper le comportement des composantes sociales et ecologiques du systeme.
Abstract: Cet article analyse les relations conceptuelles (imprecises) de la vulnerabilite, de la resilience et de la capacite d’adaptation aux changements climatiques selon le systeme socio-ecologique (socio-ecologigal systems – SES) afin de comprendre et anticiper le comportement des composantes sociales et ecologiques du systeme. Une serie de questions est proposee par l’auteur sur la specification de ces termes afin de developper une structure conceptuelle qui inclut les dimensions naturelles et so...

1,133 citations

01 Jan 2018
TL;DR: The feasibility of mitigation and adaptation options, and the enabling conditions for strengthening and implementing the systemic changes, are assessed in this article, where the authors consider the global response to warming of 1.5oC comprises transitions in land and ecosystem, energy, urban and infrastructure, and industrial systems.
Abstract: The global response to warming of 1.5oC comprises transitions in land and ecosystem, energy, urban and infrastructure, and industrial systems. The feasibility of mitigation and adaptation options, and the enabling conditions for strengthening and implementing the systemic changes, are assessed in this chapter.

272 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine how key socio-political and demographic factors are associated with climate change perception across 22 European countries and Israel, showing that human values and political orientation are important predictors of climate change beliefs and concern, as are the demographics of gender, age, and education.
Abstract: There is now an extensive literature on the question of how individual-level factors affect climate change perceptions, showing that socio-political variables, notably values, worldviews and political orientation, are key factors alongside demographic variables. Yet little is known about cross-national differences in these effects, as most studies have been conducted in a single or small number of countries and cross-study comparisons are difficult due to different conceptualisations of key climate change dimensions. Using data from the European Social Survey Round 8 (n = 44,387), we examine how key socio-political and demographic factors are associated with climate change perception across 22 European countries and Israel. We show that human values and political orientation are important predictors of climate change beliefs and concern, as are the demographics of gender, age, and education. Certain associations with climate change perceptions, such as the ones for the self-transcendence versus self-enhancement value dimension, political orientation, and education, are more consistent across countries than for gender and age. However, even if the direction of the associations are to a large extent consistent, the sizes of the effects are not. We demonstrate that the sizes of the effects are generally smaller in Central and Eastern European countries, and that some demographic effects are larger in Northern European as compared to Western European countries. This suggests that findings from one country do not always generalize to other national contexts.

252 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is shown that direct experience of flooding leads to an overall increased salience of climate change, pronounced emotional responses and greater perceived personal vulnerability and risk perceptions, and the first evidence that direct flooding experience can give rise to behavioural intentions beyond individual sustainability actions.
Abstract: The winter of 2013/2014 saw a series of severe storms hit the UK, leading to widespread flooding, a major emergency response and extensive media exposure. Previous research indicates that experiencing extreme weather events has the potential to heighten engagement with climate change, however the process by which this occurs remains largely unknown, and establishing a clear causal relationship from experience to perceptions is methodologically challenging. The UK winter flooding offered a natural experiment to examine this question in detail. We compare individuals personally affected by flooding (n = 162) to a nationally representative sample (n = 975). We show that direct experience of flooding leads to an overall increased salience of climate change, pronounced emotional responses and greater perceived personal vulnerability and risk perceptions. We also present the first evidence that direct flooding experience can give rise to behavioural intentions beyond individual sustainability actions, including support for mitigation policies, and personal climate adaptation in matters unrelated to the direct experience.

247 citations