Climate, Information, Perception and Behavior

In "The measurement of key behavioral science constructs in climate change research," communications specialists Connie Roser-Renouf and Matthew Nisbet survey and evaluate a wide range of studies on climate-change related values, opinions, perceptions, preferences, knowledge and behavior.

The 2008 paper was published in the open-access International Journal of Sustainability Communication, which has since merged with the journal Environmental Communication.

I highlight one section below on the role of information in the formation of perceptions. Roser-Renouf and Nisbet occasionally use the word knowledge where I would use information (see Ackoff). Nevertheless, for anyone working to bridge these disciplines, this is a must-read paper, and this piece below but a sample.

Persuasion research going back to Hovland’s work during World War II has assumed that learning leads to attitude change, which is followed by behavior change. And for almost that long, researchers have found that this simple, straightforward KAB [knowledge-attitude-behavior] model is inadequate.

While information is generally a necessary condition for change, it is rarely a sufficient cause, and researchers on climate change are likely to focus on what types of information are needed to spur changes in behavior and build support for mitigation policies.

In explaining general perceptions of science, combined measures of basic factual technical knowledge and understanding of the scientific method have been found to explain only a small amount of variance in public opinion. On specific issues, in many cases no significant correlation is found between this basic form of science literacy and perceptions (Allum et al., 2008). Other studies show that the likely linkage between knowledge and perceptions is moderated by religiosity, ideology, or the particular social identity that might be communicated as relevant to the issue (Nisbet, 2005; Brossard et al., in press).

On climate change specifically, only a few studies have explored the relationship between carefully designed indices of knowledge and perceptions, despite the popular assumption on the part of scientists, journalists, and many advocates that the two are linked, i.e., if the public only understood the science better, they would see the urgency of the issue as experts do (Nisbet & Mooney, 2007). ...

Kaiser and Fuhrer (2003) suggest that …  procedural knowledge – knowing how to take actions – has a stronger relationship to environmental behavior than does declarative knowledge – knowing, for example, that energy use produces damaging CO2 emissions. …

Given these collective findings, more complete measurement of climate change knowledge could include:
• awareness of the issue;
• belief that climate change exists and is happening;
• understanding of the science underlying climate change;
• understanding of the scientific consensus & level of agreement among experts;
• understanding of the policy options;
• knowledge of the projected impacts of climate change;
• knowledge of the behavior changes that can mitigate climate change;
• skills to make these changes (e.g., how to install weather-stripping or a thermostat);
• knowledge of the behavior changes needed to adapt to climate change in highly affected areas;
• skills to make these changes;
• knowledge of the institutions and political actors involved in the debate; and
• skills to effectively engage with these decision-makers and stakeholders.

What Kaiser and Fuhrer call declarative knowledge is sometimes called propositional knowledge, or know-that, as opposed to know-how. The gap between knowing that a bicycle can be ridden and knowing how to ride a bicycle makes all the difference, no?