Abstract
Pakistan is consistently ranked among the countries most vulnerable to climate change, yet public attitudes toward climate change remain inconsistent and, at times, resistant to change. Grounded in cognitive dissonance theory, this study examined cognitive dissonance as a mediator of the relationship between climate change discourse exposure on social media and climate change attitudes, and tested environmental knowledge as a moderator of this process. Using a cross-sectional survey design, data were collected from 256 Pakistani university students aged 19–26, yielding a final clean sample of 250 after excluding invalid responses. Data were analyzed using SPSS and the Hayes PROCESS macro to test a moderated mediation model. Results showed that discourse exposure was positively associated with cognitive dissonance (b = 0.43, p < .001), which in turn significantly predicted climate change attitudes (b = 0.29, p < .001), supporting a significant indirect effect (ab = 0.13, 95% CI [0.08, 0.20]). Environmental knowledge significantly moderated this mediating pathway (index of moderated mediation = -0.06, 95% CI [-0.11, -0.02]): the indirect effect of discourse exposure on attitudes through dissonance was strongest among students with low environmental knowledge and weakest among those with high environmental knowledge. These findings extend cognitive dissonance theory into a social-media-exposure context within a developing country and suggest that environmental knowledge may buffer attitudes from being driven primarily by the discomfort of conflicting information. Implications for climate communication and environmental education among Pakistani youth are discussed.