ArticleNature communications2022
Americans experience a false social reality by underestimating popular climate policy support by nearly half.
Article in Nature communications, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers.
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Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed.
- The expressive function of public policy: renewable energy mandates signal social norms.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Trial
- Not that different after all: Pro-environmental social norms predict pro-environmental behaviour (also) among those believing in conspiracy theories.British journal of psychology (London, England : 1953) · 2026Article
- How local social norms shape global environmental action: The role of norm misperceptions in environmental attitude-behaviour cycles.British journal of psychology (London, England : 1953) · 2026Article
- Combined signals of scientific and social consensus best mobilize action on societal challenges even if government and industry oppose.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Cultural tightness and social cohesion under coevolving beliefs, behaviors, and preferences.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Mental models of the sixth mass extinction reveal pathways for transformative sustainability action.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Using doughnut economics to structure whole-system thinking with multidisciplinary stakeholders - a soft systems approach.Urban transformations · 2026Article
- Negotiating climate change: Science, policy, and the invisible power embedded in public discourse in Chinese social media.PloS one · 2026Article
- Messaging Impacts Public Perspectives Towards Fur Farming in the Northeastern United States.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- Mapping prescriptive beliefs on seventh generation stewardship and increasing the temporal scope of intergenerational concern.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Turning mass support for environmental goals into action.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- How opinion variation among in-groups can skew perceptions of ideological polarization.PNAS nexus · 2025Article
- What We Think Others Think and Do About Climate Change: A Multicountry Test of Pluralistic Ignorance and Public-Consensus Messaging.Psychological science · 2025Article
- Behavioral interventions motivate action to address climate change.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Quirks of cognition explain why we dramatically overestimate the size of minority groups.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Most Christian American religious leaders silently believe in climate change, and informing their congregation can help open dialogue.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Out of the labs and into the streets: Effects of climate protests by environmental scientists.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Machine learning identifies key individual and nation-level factors predicting climate-relevant beliefs and behaviors.npj climate action · 2025Article
- Ruminant livestock and climate change: critical discourse moments in mainstream and farming sector news media.Agriculture and human values · 2025Article
- With a little help from my friends: Social support, hope and climate change engagement.The British journal of social psychology · 2025Article
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3 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
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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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.