Visual art inspired by climate change—An analysis of audience reactions to 37 artworks presented during 21st UN climate summit in Paris

differences, in reality, are caused by background variables not included in the study. However, since we included environmental attitudes, which is a variable often strongly related to world- views and political preferences, and we find significant relations between reflections on the art- work and policy support even when controlling for environmental attitudes, plus a significant interaction. We feel confident that the relations reported in our study are not completely arbitrary. Conclusion This is one of the first studies that systematically analyses the psychological mechanisms by which climate change-related art might relate to people’s reflections on climate change and support for climate policies. Thereby, it brings together research on the psychological mecha- nisms of experiences with art and the environmental psychological theory behind support for climate change mitigation. By covering a large variety of artworks, we were able to explore reactions across different types of artworks. The results indicate that being confronted with cli- mate change art mostly relates to emotional reactions. The activating function of art also seems to be related to deeper reflections and support for action in the form of policies. The inputs defined in art perception models [13] may also mediate the effects of viewing environ- mental art. The conclusion is that our analyses suggest that if art manages to trigger a strong enough emotional reaction, it might start a process of reflection, which then may lead to sup-

port of the action. Interestingly, both negative and positive emotions seem to fuel this support for action. Which emotional profile art triggers depends on different characteristics of the art- work, such as technique or size. The results indicate that climate change-related art might have a unique communicative function based on opening a space in which people can make the topic of climate change per- sonally relevant to themselves. Subjectivity, emotions, or connecting the individual to the global may be easier achieved through the medium of art if art does not claim to tell or find "the truth" about climate change but bring up topics relevant for society and leave it up to the viewer to find their own truth. The results show that this form of communication can be linked to a response in the audience. The link to environmental behavior should be studied further, possibly with an artwork specifically designed to elicit engagement with climate change. Supporting information S1 Table. List of artworks st. (DOCX) S2 Table. Loadings on the latent variables in the measurement model (with "identification with the artist" included in the upper half, with "identification with the artist" excluded in the lower half of the table). CR = composite reliability; AVE = average variance extracted; B = unstandardized loading; SE = standard error; Beta = standardized loading; RES = unstandardized unexplained residual variance; p = significance level of loading. (DOCX) S3 Table. Correlations of all latent variables and single-item measures in the measurement

model (model with "identification with the artist" below the diagonal; model without "identification with the artist" above the diagonal). The table displays Pearson correlations; ��� p < .001, �� p < .01, � p < .05. (DOCX) S4 Table. A simplified model to test the interaction between environmental attitude and reflection on the artwork (with gender as a control variable). As the outcome variable PLOS ONE Visual art inspired by climate change — An analysis of audience reactions PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247331 February 19, 2021 14 / 18