Evaluating the usefulness of Protection Motivation Theory for predicting climate change mitigation behavioral intentions among a US sample of climate change deniers and acknowledgers.

Background: This paper summarizes data from 7 studies that used Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) to guide climate messaging with the goal of increasing climate-mitigating behavioral intentions. Together, the studies address 5 research questions. 1) Does PMT predict behavioral intentions in the context of climate change mitigation? 2) Does PMT work similarly for climate change deniers vs acknowledgers? 3) Are the effects of threat and efficacy additive or multiplicative? 4) Does adding measures of collective threat and efficacy improve the model accuracy for a collective problem like climate change? 5) Can threat and efficacy appraisals - and ultimately behavioral intentions - be shifted through climate messaging?

Methods: Seven online experiments were conducted on US adults (N = 3,761) between 2020 and 2022.

To create serious movement on climate change, we must dispel the myth of indifference.

Public underestimation of support for climate change policy is striking. Social science research tells us this is bad news, but also tells us what to do about it. Climate change communication must hammer home the overwhelming support for action.

Novel approach to delivering pro-environmental messages significantly shifts norms and motivation, but children are not more effective spokespeople than adults.

Three studies provided initial laboratory tests of the effectiveness of a novel form of community-based environmental messaging intended to be deployed on public digital signs. In all studies, adult participants watched a slideshow of "Community Voices," a display that combines community images and quotes to celebrate and empower pro-environmental and pro-community thought and action. In addition to assessing the general efficacy of the approach, a central goal was to assess the impact of alternative messengers by comparing identical text associated with either adult or child messengers (Studies 1, 2, and 3).

The equivalence of measures on the Connectedness to Nature Scale: A comparison between ordinal methods of DIF detection.

The Connectedness to Nature Scale has been used in many different countries and settings. However, no one has yet tested the equivalence of these measures. Equivalence of measures has been the subject of much research in recent years, due to the importance of measuring in the same way when comparing between different groups.

Electricity and Water Conservation on College and University Campuses in Response to National Competitions among Dormitories: Quantifying Relationships between Behavior, Conservation Strategies and Psychological Metrics.

"Campus Conservation Nationals" (CCN) is a recurring, nation-wide electricity and water-use reduction competition among dormitories on college campuses. We conducted a two year empirical study of the competition's effects on resource consumption and the relationship between conservation, use of web technology and various psychological measures. Significant reductions in electricity and water use occurred during the two CCN competitions examined (n = 105,000 and 197,000 participating dorm residents respectively).

A threat in the computer: the race implicit association test as a stereotype threat experience.

Three experiments test whether the threat of appearing racist leads White participants to perform worse on the race Implicit Association Test (IAT) and whether self-affirmation can protect from this threat. Experiments 1 and 2 suggest that White participants show a stereotype threat effect when completing the race IAT, leading to stronger pro-White scores when the test is believed to be diagnostic of racism. This effect increases for domain-identified (highly motivated to control prejudice) participants (Experiment 2).