Does personal climate change mitigation behavior influence collective behavior? Experimental evidence of no spillover in the United States

Lacroix, Karine; Carman, Jennifer P.; Goldberg, Matthew H.; Gustafson, Abel; Rosenthal, Seth A.; Leiserowitz, Anthony

doi:10.1016/j.erss.2022.102875

Cited by 9 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…This is important given that there is currently strong evidence against the proenvironmental spillover hypothesis (e.g., ref. 64 ). This implies that less impactful proenvironmental behaviors are unlikely to spread into more impactful behaviors, especially when interventions are based on financial- rather than social- and autonomy-supportive motives ( 56 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Field interventions for climate change mitigation behaviors: A second-order meta-analysis

Bergquist

Thiel

Goldberg

et al. 2023

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Behavioral change is essential to mitigate climate change. To advance current knowledge, we synthesize research on interventions aiming to promote climate change mitigation behaviors in field settings. In a preregistered second-order meta-analysis, we assess the overall effect of 10 meta-analyses, incorporating a total of 430 primary studies. In addition, we assess subgroup analyses for six types of interventions, five behaviors, and three publication bias adjustments. Results showed that climate change mitigation interventions were generally effective ( d unadjusted = 0.31, 95% CI [0.30, 0.32]). A follow-up analysis using only unique primary studies, adjusted for publication bias, provides a more conservative overall estimate ( d = 0.18, 95% CI [0.13, 0.24]). This translates into a mean treatment effect of 7 percentage points. Furthermore, in a subsample of adequately powered large-scale interventions ( n > 9,000, k = 32), the effect was adjusted downward to approximately 2 percentage points. This discrepancy might be because large-scale interventions often target nonvoluntary participants by less direct techniques (e.g., “home energy reports”) while small-scale interventions often target voluntary participants by more direct techniques (e.g., face-to-face interactions). Subgroup analyses showed that interventions based on social comparisons or financial incentives were the most effective, while education or feedback was the least effective. These results provide a comprehensive state-of-the-art summary of climate change mitigation interventions, guiding both future research and practice.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Field interventions for climate change mitigation behaviors: A second-order meta-analysis

Bergquist

Thiel

Goldberg

et al. 2023

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Our research focuses on the audience of video gamers and their behaviors related to climate change, with the intention of informing future methods and messaging development. We operationalize the measurement of behavior as collective actions related to climate change, also known as public sphere actions (Lacroix et al, 2022;Stern, 2000). These actions can be taken alone or with others (such as activist organizations), and are meant to in uence the behaviors of other individuals, governments, and businesses (Lacroix et al, 2022;Stern, 2000).…”

Section: Theoretical Framework and Research Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We operationalize the measurement of behavior as collective actions related to climate change, also known as public sphere actions (Lacroix et al, 2022;Stern, 2000). These actions can be taken alone or with others (such as activist organizations), and are meant to in uence the behaviors of other individuals, governments, and businesses (Lacroix et al, 2022;Stern, 2000). These behaviors are important because they can have broad-reaching impacts such as changes in government regulations or corporate practices related to climate change (Stern, 2000).…”

Section: Theoretical Framework and Research Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geeks versus climate change: understanding American video gamers’ engagement with global warming

Carman,

Psaros,

Rosenthal

et al. 2024

Climatic Change

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As climate change impacts increase, communicators must engage as many audiences as possible in climate action. One potentially underrated audience is video gamers. Two-thirds of Americans play video games, and video games are a potentially effective climate change communication tool. However, little research has examined whether video gamers have unique value as a target audience for climate communication, and if they do, what might be effective ways to reach them. To address this need, we use two surveys including self-identi ed video game players in the United States to measure their current engagement with climate change, including through video gaming. In Study 1, a nationally representative survey in the United States (N = 1,006), we found that being a video gamer was slightly positively associated with intentions to take collective action on global warming. In Study 2, restricted to gamers in the United States (N = 2,034), we found that having more friends and family who played video games, and/or being exposed to global warming content in gaming, were also positively associated with collective action intentions. These ndings were consistent even after controlling for potential confounding variables such as age, political party, and global warming attitudes. Results suggest that video gamers are a worthwhile potential audience for future climate change communication, combatting the stereotype of video gamers as disengaged or antisocial, at least in the context of climate change. Our study also identi es several potential avenues for future communication with video gamers, particularly outreach to and engagement with gaming communities.

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“…There is an on-going debate on the overall effectiveness of "low-cost" proenvironmental behaviors in the context of carbon emission reduction in view of potential negative spillovers they may trigger on more relevant behaviors (Lacasse, 2015;Sparkman et al, 2021;Lacroix et al, 2022). Some scholars argue that household behaviors such as green consumption can rapidly reduce carbon emissions at comparatively low cost (Gifford et al, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Behavioral spillovers from green purchases: comparing impacts on consumption and policy support

Castro Santa,

Drews,

van den Bergh

2024

Front. Behav. Econ.

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Green labels and green advertising aim to promote products associated with less energy demands and lower carbon emissions. However, there are indications that purchasing green products may trigger negative spillover effects to subsequent pro-environmental behaviors. One policy-relevant question is whether spillovers from green purchases vary between different types of pro-environmental behaviors, notably consumption vs. policy support, and what determines any differences. Another important question is whether the price of green products affects the magnitude and direction of such spillover effects. Using an experiment among US citizens (N = 1,985), we show that spillovers from green purchases differ significantly between pro-environmental behaviors. In particular we find that spillovers are positive for green consumption and negative for climate policy support. Regarding price effects, we do not find robust evidence on their moderating role but only a tendency for cheap prices to exacerbate the direction of the spillover: negative for policy support and positive for green consumption. Finally, pro-environmental identity, previously suggested in the literature as a central moderator of spillover effects from green purchases, appears to be less determinant.

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Does personal climate change mitigation behavior influence collective behavior? Experimental evidence of no spillover in the United States

Cited by 9 publications

References 31 publications

Field interventions for climate change mitigation behaviors: A second-order meta-analysis

Field interventions for climate change mitigation behaviors: A second-order meta-analysis

Geeks versus climate change: understanding American video gamers’ engagement with global warming

Behavioral spillovers from green purchases: comparing impacts on consumption and policy support

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