Does the label really matter? Evidence that the US public continues to doubt “global warming” more than “climate change”

Schuldt, Jonathon P.; Enns, Peter K.; Cavaliere, Victoria

doi:10.1007/s10584-017-1993-1

Cited by 43 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…See Mossler, Bostrom, Kelly, Crosman, and Moy () for additional details about the parent MTurk survey and data handling thereof. Our approach contrasts with that of Schuldt, Enns, and Cavaliere (), who find a difference between responses to items framed as “climate change” versus those framed as “global warming.” Their analysis attributes the difference they observe to a difference in how Republican respondents react to the two terms (Schuldt et al., ) Responses to these wordings do not differ in our MTurk results and so are combined in all analyses.…”

contrasting

confidence: 75%

Efficacy Foundations for Risk Communication: How People Think About Reducing the Risks of Climate Change

2019

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Believing action to reduce the risks of climate change is both possible (self-efficacy) and effective (response efficacy) is essential to motivate and sustain risk mitigation efforts, according to current risk communication theory. Although the public recognizes the dangers of climate change, and is deluged with lists of possible mitigative actions, little is known about public efficacy beliefs in the context of climate change. Prior efficacy studies rely on conflicting constructs and measures of efficacy, and links between efficacy and risk management actions are muddled. As a result, much remains to learn about how laypersons think about the ease and effectiveness of potential mitigative actions. To bring clarity and inform risk communication and management efforts, we investigate how people think about efficacy in the context of climate change risk management by analyzing unprompted and prompted beliefs from two national surveys (N = 405, N = 1,820). In general, respondents distinguish little between effective and ineffective climate strategies. While many respondents appreciate that reducing fossil fuel use is an effective risk mitigation strategy, overall assessments reflect persistent misconceptions about climate change causes, and uncertainties about the effectiveness of risk mitigation strategies. Our findings suggest targeting climate change risk communication and management strategies to (1) address gaps in people's existing mental models of climate action, (2) leverage existing public understanding of both potentially effective mitigation strategies and the collective action dilemma at the heart of climate change action, and (3) take into account ideologically driven reactions to behavior change and government action framed as climate action.

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contrasting

confidence: 75%

Efficacy Foundations for Risk Communication: How People Think About Reducing the Risks of Climate Change

2019

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“…() for additional details about the parent survey. This approach contrasts with that of Schuldt, Enns, and Cavaliere (), which finds a difference between responses to items framed as “climate change” versus those framed as “global warming.” Their analysis attributes the difference they observe to a difference in how Republican respondents react to the two terms (Schuldt et al., ). We conducted sensitivity analyses to ensure that this was not influencing our results for scale construction, and control for political ideology in our modeling.…”

mentioning

confidence: 72%

Efficacy, Action, and Support for Reducing Climate Change Risks

2018

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A growing body of research demonstrates that believing action to reduce the risks of climate change is both possible (self-efficacy) and effective (response efficacy) is essential to motivate and sustain risk mitigation efforts. Despite this potentially critical role of efficacy beliefs, measures and their use vary wildly in climate change risk perception and communication research, making it hard to compare and learn from efficacy studies. To address this problem and advance our understanding of efficacy beliefs, this article makes three contributions. First, we present a theoretically motivated approach to measuring climate change mitigation efficacy, in light of diverse proposed, perceived, and previously researched strategies. Second, we test this in two national survey samples (Amazon's Mechanical Turk N = 405, GfK Knowledge Panel N = 1,820), demonstrating largely coherent beliefs by level of action and discrimination between types of efficacy. Four additive efficacy scales emerge: personal self-efficacy, personal response efficacy, government and collective self-efficacy, and government and collective response efficacy. Third, we employ the resulting efficacy scales in mediation models to test how well efficacy beliefs predict climate change policy support, controlling for specific knowledge, risk perceptions, and ideology, and allowing for mediation by concern. Concern fully mediates the relatively strong effects of perceived risk on policy support, but only partly mediates efficacy beliefs. Stronger government and collective response efficacy beliefs and personal self-efficacy beliefs are both directly and indirectly associated with greater support for reducing the risks of climate change, even after controlling for ideology and causal beliefs about climate change.

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“…S1) before completing the survey items described above. Additionally, to assess the generalizability of these perceived norms in light of research on labeling effects in environmental surveys (40), respondents were randomly assigned to estimate concerns about "the environment" or "climate change," the latter representing a specific environmental issue that is highly politicized in the United States.…”

Section: Study Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diverse segments of the US public underestimate the environmental concerns of minority and low-income Americans

Pearson

Schuldt

Romero‐Canyas

et al. 2018

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

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In a nationally representative survey experiment, diverse segments of the US public underestimated the environmental concerns of nonwhite and low-income Americans and misperceived them as lower than those of white and more affluent Americans. Moreover, both whites and nonwhites and higher- and lower-income respondents associated the term “environmentalist” with whites and the well-educated, suggesting that shared cultural stereotypes may drive these misperceptions. This environmental belief paradox—a tendency to misperceive groups that are among the most environmentally concerned and most vulnerable to a wide range of environmental impacts as least concerned about the environment—was largely invariant across demographic groups and also extended to the specific issue of climate change. Suggesting these beliefs are malleable, exposure to images of a racially diverse (vs. nondiverse) environmental organization in an embedded randomized experiment reduced the perceived gap between whites’ and nonwhites’ environmental concerns and strengthened associations between nonwhites and the category “environmentalists” among minority respondents. These findings suggest that stereotypes about others’ environmental attitudes may pose a barrier to broadening public engagement with environmental initiatives, particularly among populations most vulnerable to negative environmental impacts.

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Does the label really matter? Evidence that the US public continues to doubt “global warming” more than “climate change”

Cited by 43 publications

References 27 publications

Efficacy Foundations for Risk Communication: How People Think About Reducing the Risks of Climate Change

Efficacy Foundations for Risk Communication: How People Think About Reducing the Risks of Climate Change

Efficacy, Action, and Support for Reducing Climate Change Risks

Diverse segments of the US public underestimate the environmental concerns of minority and low-income Americans

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