Addressing climate change with behavioral science: A global intervention tournament in 63 countries

Madalina Vlasceanu, Kimberly C. Doell, Joseph B. Bak-Coleman, Boryana Todorova, Michael M. Berkebile-Weinberg, Samantha J. Grayson, Yash Patel, Danielle Goldwert, Yifei Pei, Alek Chakroff, Ekaterina Pronizius, Karlijn L. van den Broek, Denisa Vlasceanu, Sara Constantino, Michael J. Morais, Philipp Schumann, Steve Rathje, Ke Fang, Salvatore Maria Aglioti, Mark AlfanoAndy J. Alvarado-Yepez, Angélica Andersen, Frederik Anseel, Matthew A. J. Apps, Chillar Asadli, Fonda Jane Awuor, Flavio Azevedo, Piero Basaglia, Jocelyn J. Bélanger, Sebastian Berger, Paul Bertin, Michał Białek, Olga Bialobrzeska, Michelle Blaya-Burgo, Daniëlle N. M. Bleize, Simen Bø, Lea Boecker, Paulo S. Boggio, Sylvie Borau, Björn Bos, Ayoub Bouguettaya, Markus Brauer, Cameron Brick, Tymofii Brik, Roman Briker, Tobias Brosch, Iris M. Engelhard, Ana Rita Farias, Kevin van Schie, Aart van Stekelenburg

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions' effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior-several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people's initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbereadj5778
JournalScience advances
Volume10
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 American Association for the Advancement of Science. All rights reserved.

Funding

Funding: this work was supported by Google Jigsaw grant (to M.Vl., K.c.d., and J.J.V.B.), Swiss national Science Foundation P400PS_190997 (to K.c.d.), dutch Research council grant 7934 (to K.l.v.d.B.), european Union grant no. id 776608 (to K.l.v.d.B.), John templeton Foundation grant 61378 (to M.A.), the national council for Scientific and technological development grant (to A.A.), christ church college Research centre grant (to M.A.J.A.), david Phillips Fellowship grant BB/R010668/2 (to M.A.J.A.), Jacobs Foundation Fellowship (to M.A.J.A.), dFG grant project no. 390683824 (to M.A.d., P.Ba., and B.B.), nYUAd research funds (to J.J.B.), the Swiss Federal Office of energy through the energy, economy, and Society program grant number: Si/502093-01 (to S.Be.), the Belgian national Fund for Scientific Research (FRS-FnRS) PdR 0253.19 (to P.Be.), Fund for scientific development at the Faculty of Psychology at SWPS University in Warsaw (to O.Bi.), Radboud University Behavioral Science institute (to d.n.M.B.),

FundersFunder number
FRS-FnRSPdR 0253.19
Google Jigsaw
John Templeton Foundation61378
John Templeton Foundation
Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung776608, 7934, P400PS_190997
Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung
Fonds De La Recherche Scientifique - FNRS
Jacobs Foundation390683824
Jacobs Foundation
Bundesamt für EnergieSi/502093-01
Bundesamt für Energie
Behavioural Science institute, Radboud University
national council for ScientificBB/R010668/2

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Addressing climate change with behavioral science: A global intervention tournament in 63 countries'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this