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Changing minds about global warming: vicarious experience predicts self-reported opinion change in the USA

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Abstract

Americans increasingly accept that global warming is happening and a serious threat. Using secondary data from national probability surveys of the US adult population and preregistered hypotheses, we explore how and why Americans self-report changing their minds about global warming. Common reasons included learning more about the issue, hearing or seeing the effects of global warming, and personally experiencing its effects. We tested these reasons, as well as additional factors known to influence global warming opinion, including perceptions of social norms, media attention, and exposure to extreme weather, to assess their relative strength in predicting self-reported opinion change. As expected, perceived experience with global warming—particularly vicarious experience or seeing/hearing others experience its effects—emerged as a top correlate, even while statistically controlling for perceptions of social norms and attention to partisan-leaning media like Fox News. Perceived personal experience was a stronger correlate of self-reported opinion change among Republicans, whereas learning more about global warming was a stronger correlate among Democrats. Also as expected, perceiving social norms supportive of climate action was associated with positive self-reported opinion change, particularly among Republicans. Further, attention to the Fox News Channel was associated with negative self-reported opinion change but only among Republicans. Although this research is exploratory and uses self-reported data, it suggests that personalizing and localizing the threat of climate change, and enhancing the norm that most people support action, may be important factors to investigate in future longitudinal research on public opinion change and communication strategies.

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Funding

This project was supported by the 11th Hour Project, the Energy Foundation, the Grantham Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Yale Program On Climate Change Communication, Yale School of the Environment, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06511, USA

    Matthew T. Ballew, Jennifer R. Marlon, Matthew H. Goldberg, Seth A. Rosenthal & Anthony Leiserowitz

  2. Center for Climate Change Communication, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, 22030, USA

    Edward W. Maibach

  3. Department of Geography, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, 19716, USA

    Emily Aiken

Authors
  1. Matthew T. Ballew
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  2. Jennifer R. Marlon
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  3. Matthew H. Goldberg
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  4. Edward W. Maibach
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  5. Seth A. Rosenthal
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  6. Emily Aiken
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  7. Anthony Leiserowitz
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Contributions

Matthew Ballew, Jennifer Marlon, Matthew Goldberg, Edward Maibach, Seth Rosenthal, and Anthony Leiserowitz developed the scope of work and design of the study. Matthew Ballew and Jennifer Marlon organized the database. Matthew Ballew, Jennifer Marlon, and Emily Aiken performed data analyses. Matthew Ballew and Jennifer Marlon wrote the manuscript. All authors contributed to manuscript revision, read, and approved the submitted version.

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Correspondence to Matthew T. Ballew.

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The Human Subjects Committee of Yale University deemed this study as exempt under 45 CFR 46.101(b) (2), research involving the use of educational tests (cognitive, diagnostic, aptitude, achievement), survey procedures, interview procedures, or observation of public behavior, unless the information is obtained and recorded in such a manner that the human subjects can be identified, directly or through identifiers linked to the subjects, and any disclosure of the human subjects’ responses outside the research could reasonably place the subjects at risk of criminal or civil liability or be damaging to the subjects’ financial standing, employability, or reputation.

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The Human Subjects Committee of Yale University deemed this study as exempt under 45 CFR 46.101(b).

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Ballew, M.T., Marlon, J.R., Goldberg, M.H. et al. Changing minds about global warming: vicarious experience predicts self-reported opinion change in the USA. Climatic Change 173, 19 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-022-03397-w

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