Tools- of Changes

Focus Climate Messages on the Future and Dear Ones

Based on research with 7,624 U.S. adults, interventions that emphasize social relevance and future thinking are most effective at motivating climate action.

• The authors conducted a large-scale “intervention tournament: that tested 17 interventions that targeted psychological mechanisms described by three key themes: Relevance, Future Thinking, and Response Efficacy.
• They recruited 7,624 U.S. adults and randomly assigned them to one of 17 intervention conditions or a no-intervention control group.
• Interventions that emphasized social relevance were the most effective for motivating people to share news articles and petitions about climate change.
• Interventions that targeted future thinking were the most effective for broadly motivating individual actions (e.g., driving less, eating vegetarian meals) and collective actions (e.g., donating, volunteering) to address climate change.
• Interventions that emphasized the environmental impact of these actions reliably increased the perceived impact of pro-environmental actions, but did not consistently motivate action.
• Interventions that targeted two or more mechanisms—such as imagining a future scenario that involved oneself or close others—were most effective.
• The leading interventions were substantially more effective than prevalent existing strategies (e.g., carbon footprint information).