Human dimensions of climate change I. Perceptions and biases of energy consumption

1. Human dimensions of climate change I. Perceptions and biases of energy consumption II. Communicating Climate Change Shahzeen Z. Attari sattari@indiana.edu • http://mypage.iu.edu/~sattari Indiana University Bloomington School of Public and Environmental Affairs

2. Can we stabilize carbon dioxide emissions?

3. “Humanity already possesses the fundamental scientific, technical and industrial know-how to solve the carbon and climate problem for the next half-century.” (Pacala and Socolow, Science, 2004)

4. Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies Renewable electricity CO2 capture and storage Efficiency and conservation Forests and soil Fuel switching Nuclear fission (Pacala and Socolow, Science, 2004)

5. Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies Renewable electricity CO2 capture and storage Efficiency and conservation Forests and soil Fuel switching Nuclear fission “Improvements in efficiency and conservation offer the greatest potential to provide wedges”

6. Update: Since 2004… (Socolow, 2011)

7. Why don’t Americans conserve energy and adopt energy-efficient technologies?

8. On why people do not act Information deficit model Motivation deficit model Don’t know how much I will save Don’t know what to do Don’t know how … Cost Time Effort Social norms …

9. Overviewwork completed Understand how people interact with technology and nature • Perceptions of energy consumption and savings • Most effective behavior? • Accuracy of perceptions? • Factors that predict accuracy? • (Attari et al., PNAS,2010)

10. Behaviors deemed “most effective” by participants 12%

11. Behaviors deemed “most effective” by participants Curtailment Efficiency

12. Risk Perception (Lichtenstein et al., 1978)

14. (Attari et al., 2010)

15. (Attari et al., 2010)

16. Laptops overestimated 2x (Attari et al., 2010)

17. Dishwashers underestimated 800x (Attari et al., 2010)

18. (Attari et al., 2010)

19. Findings: “In your opinion, what is the most effective thing that you could do to conserve energy in your life?” - Participants state: 55% “curtailment” 12% “efficiency” Gardener and Stern (2008): “efficiency saves more energy than curtailment”

20. Findings: Major misperceptions in energy consumption • People have small overestimates for • low-energy behaviors and large underestimates for high-energy behaviors •  many implications for technology, education, and policy

21. Overviewwork completed Understand how people interact with technology and nature Perceptions of energy consumption and savings (Attari et al., 2010)

22. OverviewCurrent work Understand how people interact with technology and nature Perceptions of energy consumption and savings (Attari et al., 2010) Biases in personal energy consumption (Attari et al., rnr)

23. On why people do not act Information deficit model Motivation deficit model Don’t know how much I will save Don’t know what to do Don’t know how … Cost Time Effort Social norms …

24. What you want to do vs. What others should do

25. Research questions • Would there be any systematic differences in how people answer the following two questions? • “In your opinion, what is the single most effective thing that you could do to use less energy in your life?” • “In your opinion, what is the most single most effective thing that Americans could do to use less energy in their lives?”

26. Predictions • If information deficits: • Distribution of responses should be similar for both questions • If motivated cognition: • Systematic differences in responses between questions (e.g., listing an easy non-effective behavior for self and a harder effective behavior for others)

27. Most effective behavior: Self vs. others

28. Most effective behavior: Self vs. others

29. Most effective action for self and other Americans Turn off (appliances and lights)Drive less (drive less, carpool, use public transportation, bike, and walk)

30. I’ll do the easy thing, you do the hard thing Individuals who choose the easier option for themselves are likely to ask others to do the harder thing. McNemar chi-square statistic for asymmetry 26.1, p < 0.0001

31. Findings: I’ll do the easy thing, you do the hard thing • People are motivated to list easier non-effective behaviors for themselves (e.g., turning off the light) and harder more effective behaviors for others (e.g., carpooling, driving less).

32. Questions so far?

33. Part II : Communicating climate change

34. The Psychology of Climate Change Communication

35. Study of individual and group decision making under climate uncertainty and decision making in the face of environmental risk Cognitive, affective, and social processes by which people decide how to cope with environmental uncertainty and change

36. Interdisciplinary (driven by social science, psychology) agronomy anthropology climate science ecology economics engineering environmental science geography history management meteorology oceanography political science psychology

37. Availability of information = use of information More/better information = better decisions

39. Scientific Information • Increasingly present or sought in decision settings • Often in the form of a probabilistic forecast • seasonal-to-interannual, decadal, and long-term climate change • natural hazards • Or, technical information related to energy consumption • Many barriers to its use by decision makers • How can information be communicated and used more effectively?

40. Availability of information = use of information More/better information = better decisions Information deficit ? Motivation deficit ?

41. Decision makers • are selective when attending to information • evaluate options using both cognitive and affective processes • are influenced by the context of the decision • are influenced by beliefs, goals, and prior experience

43. 1 Know Your Audience • Subjective perception of risk • Different people worry about different things and two people may perceive the same risk as more or less threatening and manageable, and therefore worry about it to a different extent. • Subjective feelings of being at risk (affective risk dimensions) influence judgments of the riskiness of material, physical, and environmental risks in ways that go beyond their objective consequences • Perceptions matter, often more, than scientific facts. Subjective perceptions of risk influence what people pay attention to in complicated situations and define how people approach and solve problems. Risk perceptions are part of a person’s mental model.

44. 1 Know Your Audience • Subjective perception of risk -- • Mental models • represent a person’s thought process of how something works, understanding of the surrounding world • based on often-incomplete facts, past experiences, intuitive perceptions • include relevant knowledge and beliefs that help people interpret new information in order to reach conclusions • especially when hearing about risk, people refer to known related phenomena and associations from their past to decide if they find the risk threatening or manageable • often serve as filter for search and uptake of information • confirmation bias

45. Illustration by Ian Webster, 2009

46. 1 Know Your Audience • Subjective perception of risk • Mental models • Confirmation bias • Cultural values • Worldview, political orientation

47. 2 Get Your Audience’s Attention • Spatial and temporal distance • Bring the message close to home

49. 2 Get your audience’s attention • Spatial and temporal distance • Bring the message close to home • Framing matters • Different strokes for different folks • CC, health, national security • Loss vs. gain: losses loom larger

50. Ground Meat 85% lean 15% fat