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. 2022 Aug 23;13(1):4779.
doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-32412-y.

Americans experience a false social reality by underestimating popular climate policy support by nearly half

Gregg Sparkman  1 , Nathan Geiger  2 , Elke U Weber  3
Affiliations

Americans experience a false social reality by underestimating popular climate policy support by nearly half

Gregg Sparkman et al. Nat Commun. .

Abstract

Pluralistic ignorance-a shared misperception of how others think or behave-poses a challenge to collective action on problems like climate change. Using a representative sample of Americans (N = 6119), we examine whether Americans accurately perceive national concern about climate change and support for mitigating policies. We find a form of pluralistic ignorance that we describe as a false social reality: a near universal perception of public opinion that is the opposite of true public sentiment. Specifically, 80-90% of Americans underestimate the prevalence of support for major climate change mitigation policies and climate concern. While 66-80% Americans support these policies, Americans estimate the prevalence to only be between 37-43% on average. Thus, supporters of climate policies outnumber opponents two to one, while Americans falsely perceive nearly the opposite to be true. Further, Americans in every state and every assessed demographic underestimate support across all polices tested. Preliminary evidence suggests three sources of these misperceptions: (i) consistent with a false consensus effect, respondents who support these policies less (conservatives) underestimate support by a greater degree; controlling for one's own personal politics, (ii) exposure to more conservative local norms and (iii) consuming conservative news correspond to greater misperceptions.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Perceived climate change worry and support for climate policies compared to actual levels.
Boxes inside the violin plot represent the middle 50% of the sample, with a line at the median, while the minima and maxima illustrated represent the full range of responses (from 0–100%). The red line represents the true prevalence, as indicated by contemporaneous national polling,. RE refers to renewable energy. N = 6119 survey participants.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2. Partisan perceptions of popular climate worry and support for climate policy at national and state levels.
All judgments were elicited for everyone in either the entire nation or one’s state (not only for one’s fellow partisans). Items on the left labeled with “US” indicate estimates of support for policies at the national level, while those on the right labeled with “State” indicate estimates of support for those in participants’ own state. Actual partisan support levels available from contemporaneous polling (available for four US policies) are indicated by squares. Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals for the norm perception means illustrated. RE refers to renewable energy. GND refers to the Green New Deal. N = 6119 survey participants, including 2777 Democrats, 1022 Independents, and 2320 Republicans.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3. Partisan levels of pluralistic ignorance for climate worry and support for climate policy.
Pluralistic ignorance is calculated as the difference between real and perceived norm levels, so greater values indicate real levels are higher than perceived norms (i.e. greater underestimation). All perceptions pertain to either the entire nation or one’s state (not one’s fellow partisans). Items on the left labeled with “US” indicate estimates of support for policies at the national level, while those on the right labeled with “State” indicate estimates of support for those in participants’ own state. Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals of the mean differences illustrated. RE refers to renewable energy, and GND refers to the Green New Deal. N = 6119 survey participants, including 2777 Democrats, 1022 Independents, and 2320 Republicans.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4. Pluralistic ignorance for climate worry and support for climate policy across the U.S.
A shows pluralistic ignorance levels for worry about climate change by taking the difference from real and perceived national levels of climate change and averaging those levels across participants in each state. B shows levels of pluralistic ignorance for climate policy, calculated by averaging the difference between real and perceived support levels across the four national policies examined for each participant, and then averaging those levels of national policy support misperception for all participants in each state. N = 6119 survey participants. In both panels, greater values indicate real levels are higher than perceived norms (i.e. greater underestimation in perception). The ± values represent the margin of error (half of the 95% confidence interval for each state’s mean).
Fig. 5
Fig. 5. Pluralistic ignorance and news media consumption.
A shows pluralistic ignorance levels for consumers of each news media source. B Shows effects on pluralistic ignorance levels comparing consumers to non-consumers of each news media source (zero = baseline levels of misestimates). Estimates in both panels are obtained from a mixed model contrasting viewers and non-viewers of each news source and controlling for participants’ demographics. Pluralistic ignorance levels of N = 6119 participants are calculated by taking the difference from real and perceived levels of policy support and climate concern (greater values indicate real levels are higher than perceived norms, i.e. greater underestimation in perception), and controlling for the battery of demographics assessed (see Methods). Error bars are 95% confidence intervals of the means illustrated.
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