Proven Principles of Effective Climate Change Communication

Principle 3: Change Social Norms

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Project
Commission on Accelerating Climate Action
 

People are susceptible to peer pressure. When individuals feel that their neighbors expect them to act in a more climate-friendly way, those individuals are more likely to take science-consistent climate action.

The challenge to be addressed:

Individuals do not necessarily think that climate change will affect them or their immediate communities. Its effects can seem distant (Leiserowitz et al. 2013). At the same time, knowledge does not itself motivate action. Individuals see as desirable many behaviors they nonetheless avoid.

The climate science:

Norming works because our decision-making and behavior are affected by the actions and beliefs of others (Cialdini and Goldstein 2004). Social norms are the “predominant behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, and codes of conduct of a group. As perceived, they influence the expectations, opinions, and actions of group members and facilitate social coordination and solidarity within the group” (Cialdini and Jacobson 2021). Unsurprisingly then, social norms affect climate policy preferences (Alló and Loureiro 2014) and have been shown to promote household energy conservation (Allcott 2011), reduce the use of towels in hotels (Cialdini 2005), and lower water consumption in homes (Ferraro and Price 2013; Bernedo, Ferraro, and Price 2014).

By identifying them as common or uncommon or as approved or disapproved, social norms can both describe and enjoin behaviors. Messaging that shows that descriptive and injunctive norms are aligned is generally more effective than communication relying on one type alone. The direction of change in prevalence of a behavior (that is, the trend in the social norm) can affect individuals’ behavior even when the level of that behavior in the group itself is relatively low (Cialdini and Jacobson 2021).
 

Example 1: Opower’s use of social norms to incentivize reductions in energy use

In 2020, Opower reported that since 2007, it had sent nearly one billion home energy consumption comparisons on behalf of its utility clients (Oracle 2020).

Utility companies contract with Opower, a large software company, to send personalized household energy reports that both explain how to save energy and compare the recipient’s use to their neighbors’.

The home energy reports initially awarded households a rating of “Good” with one smiling emoticon if they used less energy than the mean of the neighborhood comparison group and a “Great” with two smiling emoticons if they used less energy than the 20th percentile of the comparison group. In 2016, Opower updated its report to telegraph additional data about households’ energy use relative to neighbors’, assigning an overall score of Fair, Good, or Great and providing suggestions for how to further reduce use.

Effectiveness:

A large-scale study found that receipt of Opower’s mailed comparisons of energy use was correlated with a 2.0 percent reduction in energy consumption (Allcott 2011). The positive effects persisted even after the households stopped receiving the reports (Allcott and Rogers 2014).

The need:

Find ways to apply social norming to all sectors of our lives and the economy.
 

Project
Commission on Accelerating Climate Action
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Principle 2: Communicate Consensus
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Principle 4: Overcome the Spiral of Silence (If You Believe It, Say It)
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