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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 Alfano
  • Andy 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, Ondrej Buchel, Daniel Buonauro, Radhika Butalia, Héctor Carvacho, Sarah A.E. Chamberlain, Hang Yee Chan, Dawn Chow, Dongil Chung, Luca Cian, Noa Cohen-Eick, Luis Sebastian Contreras-Huerta, Davide Contu, Vladimir Cristea, Jo Cutler, Silvana D'Ottone, Jonas De Keersmaecker, Sarah Delcourt, Sylvain Delouvée, Kathi Diel, Benjamin D. Douglas, Moritz A. Drupp, Shreya Dubey, Jānis Ekmanis, Christian T. Elbaek, Mahmoud Elsherif, Iris M. Engelhard, Yannik A. Escher, Tom W. Etienne, Laura Farage, Ana Rita Farias, Stefan Feuerriegel, Andrej Findor, Lucia Freira, Malte Friese, Neil Philip Gains, Albina Gallyamova, Sandra J. Geiger, Oliver Genschow, Biljana Gjoneska, Theofilos Gkinopoulos, Beth Goldberg, Amit Goldenberg, Sarah Gradidge, Simone Grassini, Kurt Gray, Sonja Grelle, Siobhán M. Griffin, Lusine Grigoryan, Ani Grigoryan, Dmitry Grigoryev, June Gruber, Johnrev Guilaran, Britt Hadar, Ulf J.J. Hahnel, Eran Halperin, Annelie J. Harvey, Christian A.P. Haugestad, Aleksandra M. Herman, Hal E. Hershfield, Toshiyuki Himichi, Donald W. Hine, Wilhelm Hofmann, Lauren Howe, Enma T. Huaman-Chulluncuy, Guanxiong Huang, Tatsunori Ishii, Ayahito Ito, Fanli Jia, John T. Jost, Veljko Jovanović, Dominika Jurgiel, Ondřej Kácha, Reeta Kankaanpää, Jaroslaw Kantorowicz, Elena Kantorowicz-Reznichenko, Keren Kaplan Mintz, Ilker Kaya, Ozgur Kaya, Narine Khachatryan, Anna Klas, Colin Klein, Christian A. Klöckner, Lina Koppel, Alexandra I. Kosachenko, Emily J. Kothe, Ruth Krebs, Amy R. Krosch, Andre P.M. Krouwel, Yara Kyrychenko, Maria Lagomarsino, Claus Lamm, Florian Lange, Julia Lee Cunningham, Jeffrey Lees, Tak Yan Leung, Neil Levy, Patricia L. Lockwood, Chiara Longoni, Alberto López Ortega, David D. Loschelder, Jackson G. Lu, Yu Luo, Joseph Luomba, Annika E. Lutz, Johann M. Majer, Ezra Markowitz, Abigail A. Marsh, Karen Louise Mascarenhas, Bwambale Mbilingi, Winfred Mbungu, Cillian McHugh, Marijn H.C. Meijers, Hugo Mercier, Fenant Laurent Mhagama, Katerina Michalakis, Nace Mikus, Sarah Milliron, Panagiotis Mitkidis, Fredy S. Monge-Rodríguez, Youri L. Mora, David Moreau, Kosuke Motoki, Manuel Moyano, Mathilde Mus, Joaquin Navajas, Tam Luong Nguyen, Dung Minh Nguyen, Trieu Nguyen, Laura Niemi, Sari R.R. Nijssen, Gustav Nilsonne, Jonas P. Nitschke, Laila Nockur, Ritah Okura, Sezin Öner, Asil Ali Özdoğru, Helena Palumbo, Costas Panagopoulos, Maria Serena Panasiti, Philip Pärnamets, Mariola Paruzel-Czachura, Yuri G. Pavlov, César Payán-Gómez, Adam R. Pearson, Leonor Pereira da Costa, Hannes M. Petrowsky, Stefan Pfattheicher, Nhat Tan Pham, Vladimir Ponizovskiy, Clara Pretus, Gabriel G. Rêgo, Ritsaart Reimann, Shawn A. Rhoads, Julian Riano-Moreno, Isabell Richter, Jan Philipp Röer, Jahred Rosa-Sullivan, Robert M. Ross, Anandita Sabherwal, Toshiki Saito, Oriane Sarrasin, Nicolas Say, Katharina Schmid, Michael T. Schmitt, Philipp Schoenegger, Christin Scholz, Mariah G. Schug, Stefan Schulreich, Ganga Shreedhar, Eric Shuman, Smadar Sivan, Hallgeir Sjåstad, Meikel Soliman, Katia Soud, Tobia Spampatti, Gregg Sparkman, Ognen Spasovski, Samantha K. Stanley, Jessica A. Stern, Noel Strahm, Yasushi Suko, Sunhae Sul, Stylianos Syropoulos, Neil C. Taylor, Elisa Tedaldi, Gustav Tinghög, Luu Duc Toan Huynh, Giovanni Antonio Travaglino, Manos Tsakiris, İlayda Tüter, Michael Tyrala, Özden Melis Uluğ, Arkadiusz Urbanek, Danila Valko, Sander van der Linden, Kevin van Schie, Aart van Stekelenburg, Edmunds Vanags, Daniel Västfjäll, Stepan Vesely, Jáchym Vintr, Marek Vranka, Patrick Otuo Wanguche, Robb Willer, Adrian Dominik Wojcik, Rachel Xu, Anjali Yadav, Magdalena Zawisza, Xian Zhao, Jiaying Zhao, Dawid Żuk, Jay J. Van Bavel
  • New York University
  • University of Vienna
  • Columbia University
  • Harvard University
  • Stanford University
  • Utrecht University
  • University of Pittsburgh
  • Northeastern University
  • Amazon.com, Inc.
  • University of Oldenburg
  • IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia - Roma
  • University of Rome La Sapienza
  • Macquarie University
  • Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia
  • Universidade Federal do Paraná
  • University of New South Wales
  • University of Birmingham
  • Psychology Scientific Research institute
  • Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute
  • University of Groningen
  • University of Hamburg
  • New York University Abu Dhabi
  • University of Bern
  • Université Côte d'Azur
  • Université libre de Bruxelles
  • University of Wrocław
  • SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities
  • Claremont Graduate University
  • Radboud University Nijmegen
  • Norwegian School of Economics
  • Leuphana University of Lüneburg
  • Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie
  • TBS Education
  • University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • University of Amsterdam
  • Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences
  • Kyiv School of Economics
  • Maastricht University
  • University of Geneva
  • Slovak Academy of Sciences
  • Pomona College
  • KU Leuven
  • Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
  • University of Canterbury
  • King's College London
  • University of Melbourne
  • Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology
  • University of Virginia
  • Hebrew University of Jerusalem
  • Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez
  • Canadian University Dubai
  • Kieskompas–election compass
  • Ghent University
  • Ramon Llull University
  • Université Rennes 2
  • Saarland University
  • University of Latvia
  • Aarhus University
  • University of Leicester
  • University of Pennsylvania
  • University of Salzburg
  • Lusófona University
  • Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
  • Comenius University
  • Universidad Torcuato Di Tella
  • Thammasat University
  • Higher School of Economics
  • Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts
  • Jagiellonian University in Kraków
  • Alphabet Inc.
  • Anglia Ruskin University
  • University of Bergen
  • University of Stavanger
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Ruhr University Bochum
  • University of York
  • Yerevan State University
  • University of Colorado Boulder
  • University of the Philippines
  • Reichman University
  • University of Basel
  • University of Oslo
  • Polish Academy of Sciences
  • University of Sussex
  • University of California at Los Angeles
  • Kochi University of Technology
  • University of Zurich
  • Universidad Nacional San Antonio Abad del Cusco
  • City University of Hong Kong
  • Japan Women's University
  • Tohoku University
  • Seton Hall University
  • University of Novi Sad
  • Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń
  • Green Dock
  • Tampere University
  • University of Turku
  • Leiden University
  • Erasmus University Rotterdam
  • University of Haifa
  • American University of Sharjah
  • Deakin University
  • Australian National University
  • Norwegian University of Science and Technology
  • Linköping University
  • Ural Federal University
  • Cornell University
  • Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
  • University of Cambridge
  • University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
  • Clemson University
  • Princeton University
  • University of the Sunshine Coast
  • Bocconi University
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • University of British Columbia
  • Tanzania Fisheries Research Institute
  • Simon Fraser University
  • University of Hildesheim
  • University of Massachusetts
  • Georgetown University
  • Universidade de São Paulo
  • National Agricultural Research Organisation Uganda
  • Sokoine University of Agriculture
  • Institut Jean Nicod
  • Royal Holloway University of London
  • Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research
  • The University of Auckland
  • The University of Tokyo
  • University of Córdoba
  • Université PSL
  • Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
  • University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City
  • National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology
  • Karolinska Institutet
  • Stockholm University
  • Kadir Has University
  • Marmara University
  • Uskudar University
  • Pompeu Fabra University
  • University of Silesia in Katowice
  • University of Tübingen
  • Universidad Nacional de Colombia
  • Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City
  • Autonomous University of Barcelona
  • Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
  • Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia
  • Witten/Herdecke University
  • The London School of Economics and Political Science
  • Ja-pan Society for the Promotion of Science
  • Waseda University
  • University of Lausanne
  • University of Economics, Prague
  • University of St Andrews
  • Widener University
  • Boston College
  • SS Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje
  • University of SS Cyril and Methodius, Trnava
  • Pusan National University
  • University of Queensland
  • University of Padua
  • Queen Mary University of London
  • South Ural State University
  • Tyumen State University
  • Tilburg University
  • Charles University
  • Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
  • La Trobe University
  • Northwestern University
  • University of Warsaw

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-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

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

  1. SDG 13 - Climate Action
    SDG 13 Climate Action

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