Nathaniel Geiger

From Alarmed to Dismissive of Climate Change: A Single Item Assessment of Individual Differences in Concern and Issue Involvement

ABSTRACT The present paper tests the validity of using a single-item individual difference measure of climate change concern derived from the “Six Americas” project’s descriptions of the US public’s concern about climate change. The “Six Americas” project identified six segments of the US population proposed to range from the most (i.e. Alarmed) to least Concerned (i.e. Dismissive). The order is also proposed to relate to issue involvement with those in the middle of the continuum least involved. Three studies support the reliability, construct validity, and predictive validity of self-categorization into the six segments as a single-item individual difference measure of climate change concern. Results support both a linear relation with concern about climate change and a curvilinear relation with issue involvement. These findings suggest that the single-item self-categorization measure developed for use in this manuscript is a valid and concise measure for researchers to assess participants’ opinions about climate change.

Psychology and Energy-Use Reduction Policies

Local, state, and federal governments are continuing to design and pass programs and policies to decrease demand for energy. These programs and policies provide social, economic, and environmental benefits. Social and behavioral scientists can inform policymaking and evaluation because of their expertise in behavioral change. Specifically, policies will be more effective if they include a behavioral level analysis to help select behaviors, design behavioral change strategies that target appropriate motives and abilities, and attend to social and environmental contexts. After describing these principles, the article illustrates how they can inform the evaluation of labeling programs designed to encourage energy-efficient behaviors among consumers, manufacturers, and building owners.

Catalyzing Public Engagement With Climate Change Through Informal Science Learning Centers

Using the head, heart, and hands model, we examined a training program designed to catalyze national public engagement with climate change through informal science learning centers (e.g., aquariums, zoos). Survey data were collected from visitors (N = 7,285) observing 1,101 presentations at 117 U.S. institutions before and after presenters participated in communication training. Visitors who attended posttraining (vs. pretraining) presentations reported greater understanding of climate change (head), hope (heart), and intentions to engage in community action (hands). As hypothesized, results suggested these changes were due to an increase in presenters’ discussion of climate change and use of effective communication techniques.

The gendered nature of stereotypes about climate change opinion groups

We document the gendered nature and valence of stereotypes about each of the Six Americas climate change opinion groups that represent a continuum of climate change opinions from Dismissive to Alarmed. Results primarily supported predictions. First, the more groups were associated with strong concern about climate change, the more feminine they were perceived to be. Second, groups with strong concern or strong lack of concern were seen the most negatively. However, contrary to expectations, greater concern was also associated with more positive masculine traits. Combining effects, most perceived the Dismissive to have negative masculine traits and not to have positive feminine traits, those with intermediate opinions (especially, those who were Cautious and Concerned) most favorably, and the Alarmed to have both positive masculine and negative feminine traits. Ratings suggest that (a) the Dismissive may be seen as being “bad but bold”, (b) the Cautious and Concerned may be seen as liked but not respected, and (c) the Alarmed may be seen as respected but not liked. Thus, ratings indicate the importance of attending to gendered and ambivalent impressions of group. Third, valence of impressions was moderated by perceivers’ personal concern about climate change in a manner consistent with intergroup biases. Findings lay the groundwork for understanding the influence of impressions of opinion groups on, for example, willingness to endorse opinions, associate with opinion groups, and support or oppose climate change action.

Social construction of scientifically grounded climate change discussions

Abstract The present paper examines the role of conversations in improving public engagement in climate change, and discusses how to improve these conversations by grounding them in climate science and by using tools identified in empirical research on climate change messaging. We review empirical findings on how messages can be optimized to increase their “spreadability” (i.e. messages that are most likely to be understood, remembered, and repeated from one person to another) and influence engagement climate change action. After describing general communication strategies, we present a specific example of the development, teaching, and use of these messages among educators at informal science learning centers, and research evaluating the impact of this training on educators’ conversations with their social contacts (colleagues, friends and family). The results of this research indicate that, due to educators’ frequency and use of strategies taught in the training, their social contacts’ understanding of climate change improved, as did their hope about their ability to address climate change. These improvements were positively associated with the likelihood that the social contacts engaged in group-based pro-environmental actions, including talking about climate change, and therefore increased the spread of the message.