ArticlePublisher preview available

Collective responsibility amplifies mitigation behaviors

DOI:10.1007/s10584-016-1670-9
Authors:
Nick Obradovich
Nick Obradovich
Nick Obradovich
  • This person is not on ResearchGate, or hasn't claimed this research yet.
Scott M. Guenther
Scott M. Guenther
Scott M. Guenther
  • This person is not on ResearchGate, or hasn't claimed this research yet.
Read publisher preview
Download citation
To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the authors.

Abstract and Figures

How can individuals be convinced to act on climate change? It is widely assumed that emphasizing personal responsibility for climate change is effective at increasing pro-climate behavior whereas collectively framing the causes of climate change diffuses responsibility and dampens the incentive for individual action. We observe the opposite result. Here we find, across three experiments, that emphasizing collective responsibility for the causes of climate change increases pro-climate monetary donations by approximately 7 % in environmental group members and by 50 % in the general public. Further, highlighting collective responsibility amplifies intent to reduce future carbon emissions. In contrast, focusing on personal responsibility for climate change does not significantly alter donations to climate change advocacy or the intent for future pro-climate behavior. These effects replicate and persist multiple days after treatment.
Effects persist multiple days after treatment. Panel a depicts the mean donations across treatment groups in the follow up of the first MTurk subjects (n = 238). The follow up rate was 78 %. Error bars are SEM. Panel b consists of kernel density plots of donations for each of the three experimental groups. The donation distributions in the follow up closely mirror the original donation distributions
Effects persist multiple days after treatment. Panel a depicts the mean donations across treatment groups in the follow up of the first MTurk subjects (n = 238). The follow up rate was 78 %. Error bars are SEM. Panel b consists of kernel density plots of donations for each of the three experimental groups. The donation distributions in the follow up closely mirror the original donation distributions
… 
Collective treatment increases negative emotions. Panel a depicts the mean score on a standardized negative affect scale (Kercher 1992) across treatment groups in the second study with MTurk workers (n = 451). Three stars indicate significant difference at the p = 0.01 level. Error bars are SEM. Panel b consists of kernel density plots of negative affect for each of the three experimental groups, with negative affect increasing along the x-axis. Participants in the control group reported the least negative affect, while individuals given the collective responsibility treatment reported the highest level of negative emotions
Collective treatment increases negative emotions. Panel a depicts the mean score on a standardized negative affect scale (Kercher 1992) across treatment groups in the second study with MTurk workers (n = 451). Three stars indicate significant difference at the p = 0.01 level. Error bars are SEM. Panel b consists of kernel density plots of negative affect for each of the three experimental groups, with negative affect increasing along the x-axis. Participants in the control group reported the least negative affect, while individuals given the collective responsibility treatment reported the highest level of negative emotions
… 
Collective treatment increases donations among environmentalists. Panel a depicts the mean donations across treatment groups in the National Audubon Study (n = 1, 215). One star indicates significant difference at the p = 0.10 level while two stars indicate a significant difference at the p = 0.05 level. Error bars are SEM. Panel b consists of kernel density plots of donations for each of the three experimental groups. Audubon affiliates gave a high amount of their potential winnings to Audubon across all conditions
Collective treatment increases donations among environmentalists. Panel a depicts the mean donations across treatment groups in the National Audubon Study (n = 1, 215). One star indicates significant difference at the p = 0.10 level while two stars indicate a significant difference at the p = 0.05 level. Error bars are SEM. Panel b consists of kernel density plots of donations for each of the three experimental groups. Audubon affiliates gave a high amount of their potential winnings to Audubon across all conditions
… 
Collective treatment increases donations among the general public. Panel a depicts the mean donations across treatment groups in the first study with workers from Amazon's Mechanical Turk (n = 304). Error bars are SEM. Panel b consists of kernel density plots of donations for each of the three experimental groups. As compared to Audubon affiliates, MTurk subjects gave a notably lower amount of their potential winnings to the National Audubon Society across all conditions
Collective treatment increases donations among the general public. Panel a depicts the mean donations across treatment groups in the first study with workers from Amazon's Mechanical Turk (n = 304). Error bars are SEM. Panel b consists of kernel density plots of donations for each of the three experimental groups. As compared to Audubon affiliates, MTurk subjects gave a notably lower amount of their potential winnings to the National Audubon Society across all conditions
… 
Collective treatment increases willingness to reduce future emissions. Panel a depicts the mean intention to reduce climate-causing behaviors across treatment groups in the second study with workers from MTurk (n = 451). Error bars are SEM. Panel b consists of kernel density plots of emission reduction intentions for each of the three experimental groups. Participants reported a high intention to reduce future behaviors across all three groups, with the median highest in the collective treatment group
Collective treatment increases willingness to reduce future emissions. Panel a depicts the mean intention to reduce climate-causing behaviors across treatment groups in the second study with workers from MTurk (n = 451). Error bars are SEM. Panel b consists of kernel density plots of emission reduction intentions for each of the three experimental groups. Participants reported a high intention to reduce future behaviors across all three groups, with the median highest in the collective treatment group
… 
Figures - available from: Climatic Change
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
  • A preview of this full-text is provided by Springer Nature.
  • Learn more
Preview content only
Content available from Climatic Change
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
Climatic Change (2016) 137:307–319
DOI 10.1007/s10584-016-1670-9
Collective responsibility amplifies mitigation behaviors
Nick Obradovich1·Scott M. Guenther2
Received: 15 October 2015 / Accepted: 30 March 2016 / Published online: 4 May 2016
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016
Abstract How can individuals be convinced to act on climate change? It is widely assumed
that emphasizing personal responsibility for climate change is effective at increasing
pro-climate behavior whereas collectively framing the causes of climate change diffuses
responsibility and dampens the incentive for individual action. We observe the opposite
result. Here we find, across three experiments, that emphasizing collective responsibility for
the causes of climate change increases pro-climate monetary donations by approximately
7 % in environmental group members and by 50 % in the general public. Further, highlight-
ing collective responsibility amplifies intent to reduce future carbon emissions. In contrast,
focusing on personal responsibility for climate change does not significantly alter dona-
tions to climate change advocacy or the intent for future pro-climate behavior. These effects
replicate and persist multiple days after treatment.
Keywords Climate change responsibility ·Prosocial behavior ·Climate change mitigation
1 Introduction
Many climate messages appeal directly to the individual’s role in emission reductions. For
example, a Sierra Club newsletter touts “Five Simple Things You Can Do About Global
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article
(doi:10.1007/s10584-016-1670-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized
users.
Nick Obradovich
nobradovich@ucsd.edu
1Department of Political Science, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San
Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, #0521, La Jolla, CA 92093-0521, USA
2Department of Political Science, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, #0521,
La Jolla, CA 92093-0521, USA
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
... Actions related to climate change mitigation depend on how people think about climate change (Whitmarsh et al., 2011;Doran et al., 2019). Furthermore, it is not enough to be concerned about environmental problems; it is also important that initiates to take responsibility which, according to value belief norms (Stern, 2000) and the norm activation theory (Schwartz, 1977), is an important variable influencing not only norms (Doherty and Webler, 2016) but also directly determining pro-environmental behaviour (Obradovich and Guenther, 2016;Punzo et al., 2019). Therefore, in this paper, we analysed the impact of climate change concern and personal responsibility on 13 separate actions related to climate change mitigation from purchasing low-energy homes to the separation of waste. ...
... Meanwhile, Bellamy and Hulme (2011) have revealed that egalitarianists are more concerned about climate change than individualists and fatalists. Newman et al. (2018) have found that due to the increase in exposure to leftleaning media, climate change concern increased for individuals who exhibited hierarchical and egalitarian cultural values. Furthermore, Shi et al. (2015) have revealed that hierarchical and individualistic worldviews are negatively related not only to the concern but also to the willingness to change behaviour and acceptance of climate-friendly policies. ...
... Meanwhile, other authors have found that personal responsibility has the moderate effect on energy conservation behaviour (Dwyer et al., 2015). Analysing personal responsibility, Obradovich and Guenther (2016) showed an insignificant impact, altering donations to climate change advocacy or the intent for future climatefriendly behaviour. Other authors have found ineffective or even reverse effects of responsibility on actions related to climate change (Markowitz and Shariff, 2012). ...
Climate change concern, personal responsibility and actions related to climate change mitigation in EU countries: Cross-cultural analysis
Article
To achieve the targets of climate change policy, it is important not only to enhance concerns about climate change but also to promote climate-friendly behaviour. Encompassing European Union (EU) countries, the objective of this paper was to analyse how economic development and Hofstede’s cultural dimensions contributed to climate change concerns, personal responsibility, and actions related to climate change mitigation. Furthermore, considering that actions related to climate change mitigation have different costs and benefits, in this study, we aimed to reveal whether climate change concerns and personal responsibility equally influenced all actions related to climate change mitigation and whether all types of actions were guided by the same goals. The results showed that the performance of actions related to climate change mitigation varied across European countries. The largest share of respondents declared that they reduce waste and regularly separate it for recycling. Meanwhile, a smaller share of people noted that they perform very high-cost actions such as the purchase of low-energy homes and electric cars. Economic development level significantly affects the assumption of personal responsibility and the number of actions related to climate change mitigation but not climate change concerns. Hofstede’s cultural dimensions influence climate change concerns, responsibility, and the number of actions differently. Considering separate actions related to climate change mitigation, the assumption of personal responsibility significantly and positively influenced almost all actions. Climate change concerns positively and significantly affected only low-cost actions. Because of the different costs and guiding goals, the respondents who performed one action did not necessarily perform other actions related to climate change mitigation.
... 4 represents the key conspiracy beliefs found from the literature about the COVID-19 vaccine among people worldwide. A set of beliefs are possible drivers of vaccine uptake and are closely linked to willingness to take a COVID-19 vaccine(Freeman et al., 2020): beliefs regarding the vaccine's collective importance are entwined with vaccine acceptance( Freeman et al., 2020;Obradovich & Guenther, 2016). A more or less clear pattern of questions about the vaccine's safety emerges as the most prominent in the published studies. ...
Examining the Association between Social Media Misinformation and COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy: A Systematic Review
Article
Full-text available
  • Jun 2021
Misinformation on social media regarding the COVID-19 vaccine has intensified, causing outrage among states, healthcare practitioners, and social media platforms. Anti-vaccine activists' most common conspiracy theory on social media is that the pandemic is a pre-planned hoax by pharmaceutical giants for personal benefit. To date, there has not been any review on the association between disinformation on social media, conspiracy beliefs, and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Therefore, this systematic review aims to explore the association between social media misinformation that leads to the COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, as well as to identify the most common concerns and conspiracy beliefs about the COVID-19 vaccine in the literature. This study applies a systematic literature review of 17 published articles from Scopus and Web of Science-indexed journals to understand the association between social media misinformation and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. The findings indicate that countries where people use social media as a primary source of health information, have the strongest conspiracy beliefs and the highest COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Furthermore, questions about the safety and effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine, as well as skepticism of the pharmaceutical industry, were widespread conspiracy theories. Future research should focus on the historical, political, and socio-cultural context while studying COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.
... This includes: (A) Conducting educational campaigns that discuss individuals' concerns about the pandemic and vaccine safety, as well as explaining recommendations through sensitizing dialogues [40]. (B) Emphasizing the prosocial benefits of immunization, as several studies have demonstrated that clarifying the social benefits of herd immunity increases the willingness for vaccination [41,42] particularly since the experience of locking down the country during the first wave had severely affected the SES of the population [20,43]. (C) Supporting psychological research that investigates community behavior and its perspective about vaccines. ...
Factors associated with the intention of Syrian adult population to accept COVID19 vaccination: a cross-sectional study
Article
Full-text available
Background and objectives With global efforts to develop and deliver a COVID-19 vaccine rapidly, vaccine hesitancy stands as a barrier to these efforts. We aimed to estimate the proportion of Syrian adult population intending to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and, principally, to assess the demographic and attitudinal factors associated with it in order to approach suitable solutions. Methods An anonymous online questionnaire was conducted between 23rd December 2020 and 5th January 2021 in various provinces in Syria. A total of 3402 adults were sampled to reflect the population demographic factors. Attitudinal factors included Covid-19 fears, risks, and beliefs on the origin. Vaccination hesitancy and knowledge were also measured. The intention to get vaccinated against COVID-19 was the primary endpoint. Results According to their statements, 1222 participants (35.92%) will consent to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Our findings indicate that male gender, younger age, rural residence, not having children, smoking, fear about COVID-19, individual perceived severity, believing in the natural origin of the coronavirus, and high vaccination knowledge were positive predictors of embracing COVID-19 vaccine when it is available. Conclusion COVID-19 vaccine acceptance rate is considerably poor across Syrian population compared to populations in developed countries. Vaccine hesitancy is closely bound to the fear of side effects and doubts about vaccine efficacy. Factors such as conspiracy beliefs and myths about the vaccine lower vaccine uptake. Thus, interventional educational campaigns are increasingly required to overcome misinformation and avert low vaccination acceptance rates.
... For example, focusing on personal responsibility might generate feelings of guilt and cognitive dissonance, which in turn might lead to inaction. A sense of collective responsibility, for instance, can reduce feelings of personal guilt (Obradovich and Guenther, 2016). Business responsibility, in contrast, is more likely to be facilitated by regulatory threats and shareholder action (Reid and Toffel, 2009). ...
Large-scale collective action to avoid an Amazon tipping point -key actors and interventions
Article
Full-text available
  • May 2021
The destruction of the Amazon is a major global environmental issue, not only because of greenhouse gas emissions or direct impacts on biodiversity and livelihoods, but also due to the forest's role as a tipping element in the Earth System. With nearly a fifth of the Amazon already lost, there are already signs of an imminent forest dieback process that risks transforming much of the rainforest into a drier ecosystem, with climatic implications across the globe. There is a large body of literature on the underlying drivers of Amazon deforestation. However, insufficient attention has been paid to the behavioral and institutional microfoundations of change. Fundamental issues concerning cooperation, as well as the mechanisms facilitating or hampering such actions, can play a much more central role in attempts to unravel and address Amazon deforestation. We thus present the issue of preventing the Amazon biome from crossing a biophysical tipping point as a large-scale collective action problem. Drawing from collective action theory, we apply a novel analytical framework on Amazon conservation, identifying six variables that synthesize relevant collective action stressors and facilitators: information, accountability, harmony of interests, horizontal trust, knowledge about consequences, and sense of responsibility. Drawing upon literature and data, we assess Amazon deforestation and conservation through our heuristic lens, showing that while growing transparency has made information availability a collective action facilitator, lack of accountability, distrust among actors, and little sense of responsibility for halting deforestation remain key stressors. We finalize by discussing interventions that can help break the gridlock.
... On the other hand, trust is a well-known determinant of vaccine attitude that might have been threatened by fake news often spread through social media [23]. In an era where most of the information comes from collective events-rather than from the physician's recommendations-it becomes crucial to improve communication and emphasize collective-rather than personal-responsibility [24][25][26]. ...
Vaccine Hesitancy among Italian Patients Recovered from COVID-19 Infection towards Influenza and Sars-Cov-2 Vaccination
Article
Full-text available
  • Feb 2021
We aimed to assess the attitude towards influenza and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccinations among coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) recovered patients. We performed a cross-sectional study consisting of a standardized telephone interview carried out between September and November 2020 targeting a cohort of adult in- and out-patients that had recovered from COVID-19 after the first wave (March–May 2020) at Udine Hospital (Italy). Overall, 599 people participated (320 female, median age 53 years) and most had experienced an acute COVID-19 with mild illness (409, 68.3%). The majority were hesitant or undecided towards influenza (327, 54.6%) and SARS-CoV-2 (353, 59.2%) vaccines. Older age, public work exposure, and previous 2019 flu shots were the main factors associated with a positive attitude toward both vaccinations (p < 0.05). Being hospitalized during the acute COVID-19 phase was associated with the willingness to get a flu shot (94/272, 34.5%) but not SARS-CoV-2 vaccine (70/244, 28.7%). Vaccine hesitancy is diffuse and multifactorial also among COVID-19 recovered.
... Focusing on personal responsibility can also generate feelings of guilt and cognitive dissonance, leading to inaction. A recent study shows the motivating effect of feeling collective responsibility, which might reduce feelings of personal guilt (Obradovich and Guenther, 2016), while business responsibility is more likely to be facilitated by, for example, regulatory threats and shareholder action (Reid and Toffel, 2009). ...
Large-Scale Collective Action to Avoid an Amazon Tipping Point – Key Actors and Interventions
Article
  • Jan 2020
... This chimes with evidence that emphasising collective -rather than personal -responsibility may lead to greater change in individuals' behaviour (e.g. Obradovich & Guenther, 2016). Pro-social behaviour may be especially self-rewarding and therefore affect behaviour (e.g. ...
COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the UK: The Oxford coronavirus explanations, attitudes, and narratives survey (Oceans) II
Article
Full-text available
  • Dec 2020
Background Our aim was to estimate provisional willingness to receive a coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine, identify predictive socio-demographic factors, and, principally, determine potential causes in order to guide information provision. Methods A non-probability online survey was conducted (24th September−17th October 2020) with 5,114 UK adults, quota sampled to match the population for age, gender, ethnicity, income, and region. The Oxford COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy scale assessed intent to take an approved vaccine. Structural equation modelling estimated explanatory factor relationships. Results 71.7% (n=3,667) were willing to be vaccinated, 16.6% (n=849) were very unsure, and 11.7% (n=598) were strongly hesitant. An excellent model fit (RMSEA=0.05/CFI=0.97/TLI=0.97), explaining 86% of variance in hesitancy, was provided by beliefs about the collective importance, efficacy, side-effects, and speed of development of a COVID-19 vaccine. A second model, with reasonable fit (RMSEA=0.03/CFI=0.93/TLI=0.92), explaining 32% of variance, highlighted two higher-order explanatory factors: ‘excessive mistrust’ (r=0.51), including conspiracy beliefs, negative views of doctors, and need for chaos, and ‘positive healthcare experiences’ (r=−0.48), including supportive doctor interactions and good NHS care. Hesitancy was associated with younger age, female gender, lower income, and ethnicity, but socio-demographic information explained little variance (9.8%). Hesitancy was associated with lower adherence to social distancing guidelines. Conclusions COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is relatively evenly spread across the population. Willingness to take a vaccine is closely bound to recognition of the collective importance. Vaccine public information that highlights prosocial benefits may be especially effective. Factors such as conspiracy beliefs that foster mistrust and erode social cohesion will lower vaccine up-take.
Communicating climate action: Combining action repertoires and linguistic repertoires in social movement message construction
Research
Full-text available
  • May 2022
The climate crisis is one of the largest global challenges that humanity has ever faced. Despite the scientific consensus on the threat, action is not occurring on the pace or level needed to stave off the consequences. As climate change is made up by complex and conjoined causes and effects, the issue is also riddled with communicative challenges which those calling for action need to tackle. Climate change communication research has, however, mainly focused on how traditional news media frame the climate change issue and overlooks climate activist and movement groups. This despite these actors being key for shifting public perceptions and public opinion. Although research on other communication actors exist, it is far from extensive and the research field overlooks the publics perceptions of the sender in relation to the construction of climate messages. Through survey data and an experiment, this doctoral thesis explores the public’s inclination towards different protest action repertoires and addresses the research gap in the climate movement message construction. Herein, the actions and words of three subgroups within the larger environmental movement are considered as one part of a larger message whole. The groups chosen action repertoires are viewed as part of the activists’ performed message and the linguistic communication styles created by lexical choices related to emotional appeals are part of the activists’ verbal/textual message. The results indicate that there is much to be gained from adhering to an alignment between lexical choices and action repertoires. Alignment may be key for understanding why some movement subgroups are successful in inspiring certain actions whilst others inspire other actions. Communication-action alignment is a way to approach the interconnectedness of actions and words for complex and abstract issues that require message recipients to construct consonant mental models to break potential cognitive dissonance.
Predicting engineering students’ desire to address climate change in their careers: an exploratory study using responses from a U.S. National survey
Article
  • May 2021
More engineering students are needed to address climate change in their careers. These students are necessary because engineering includes designing and building machines, structures, and components that contribute large portions of society’s carbon emissions. We surveyed a national sample of undergraduate engineering students (n = 4605) in their last semester of college about their desire to address climate change in their careers and the factors that predicted these responses. Possible variables for wanting to address climate change in their career included course topics, co-curricular experiences, climate knowledge, political affiliation, religion, and other demographics. The strongest factors that predicted engineering students’ desire to address climate change in their career were related to a feeling of personal responsibility to deal with environmental problems, recognizing climate change as a technical (not social) issue, believing climate change is caused by burning fossil fuels and livestock production, and their engineering discipline. Students majoring in environmental and architectural engineering were more likely to want to address climate change in their careers than others. Previous known factors to increase motivation for climate action like course topics, political affiliation, student organization participation, undergraduate research experience, and environmental volunteering were not strong predictors among engineering undergraduate students.
Economic Inequality, Corruption, and Personal Environmental Responsibility in Europe
Article
  • Jan 2020
Investigating variation in replicability
Article
Full-text available
  • Jan 2014
Although replication is a central tenet of science, direct replications are rare in psychology. This research tested variation in the replicability of 13 classic and contemporary effects across 36 independent samples totaling 6,344 participants. In the aggregate, 10 effects replicated consistently. One effect – imagined contact reducing prejudice – showed weak support for replicability. And two effects – flag priming influencing conservatism and currency priming influencing system justification – did not replicate. We compared whether the conditions such as lab versus online or US versus international sample predicted effect magnitudes. By and large they did not. The results of this small sample of effects suggest that replicability is more dependent on the effect itself than on the sample and setting used to investigate the effect.
Psychological responses to the proximity of climate change
Article
Full-text available
  • Oct 2015
A frequent suggestion to increase individuals' willingness to take action on climate change and to support relevant policies is to highlight its proximal consequences, that is, those that are close in space and time. But previous studies that have tested this proximizing approach have not revealed the expected positive effects on individual action and support for addressing climate change. We present three lines of psychological reasoning that provide compelling arguments as to why highlighting proximal impacts of climate change might not be as effective a way to increase individual mitigation and adaptation efforts as is often assumed. Our contextualization of the proximizing approach within established psychological research suggests that, depending on the particular theoretical perspective one takes on this issue, and on specific individual characteristics suggested by these perspectives, proximizing can bring about the intended positive effects, can have no (visible) effect or can even backfire. Thus, the effects of proximizing are much more complex than is commonly assumed. Revealing this complexity contributes to a refined theoretical understanding of the role that psychological distance plays in the context of climate change and opens up further avenues for future research and for interventions.
Geographic variation in opinions on climate change at state and local scales in the USA
Article
Full-text available
  • Apr 2015
Addressing climate change in the United States requires enactment of national, state and local mitigation and adaptation policies. The success of these initiatives depends on public opinion, policy support and behaviours at appropriate scales. Public opinion, however, is typically measured with national surveys that obscure geographic variability across regions, states and localities. Here we present independently validated high-resolution opinion estimates using a multilevel regression and poststratification model. The model accurately predicts climate change beliefs, risk perceptions and policy preferences at the state, congressional district, metropolitan and county levels, using a concise set of demographic and geographic predictors. The analysis finds substantial variation in public opinion across the nation. Nationally, 63% of Americans believe global warming is happening, but county-level estimates range from 43 to 80%, leading to a diversity of political environments for climate policy. These estimates provide an important new source of information for policymakers, educators and scientists to more effectively address the challenges of climate change.
Investigating the Long-Term Impacts of Climate Change Communications on Individuals' Attitudes and Behavior
Article
Full-text available
To assess the effectiveness of climate change communications, it is important to examine their long-term impacts on individuals' attitudes and behavior. This article offers an example study and a discussion of the challenges of conducting long-term investigations of behavioral change related to climate change communications (a vital and underresearched area). The research reported is a longitudinal panel study of the impacts on UK viewers of the climate change movie The Age of Stupid. The heightened levels of concern, motivation to act, and sense of agency about action that were initially generated by the movie did not measurably persist over the long term. The results also show that behavioral intentions do not necessarily translate into action. Data analysis raised issues concerning the reliability of participants' causal attributions of their behavior. This and other methodological challenges are discussed, and some ways of avoiding or lessening problems are suggested.
A Heteroscedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroscedasticity
Article
A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity
Article
When and how incentives (don't) work to modify behavior?
Article
Evaluating On-Line Labor Markets for Experimental Research: Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk
Article
We examine the trade-offs associated with using Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) interface for subject recruitment. We first describe MTurk and its promise as a vehicle for performing low-cost and easy-to-field experiments. We then assess the internal and external validity of experiments performed using MTurk, employing a framework that can be used to evaluate other subject pools. We first investigate the characteristics of samples drawn from the MTurk population. We show that respondents recruited in this manner are often more representative of the U.S. population than in-person convenience samples-the modal sample in published experimental political science-but less representative than subjects in Internet-based panels or national probability samples. Finally, we replicate important published experimental work using MTurk samples. © The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Political Methodology. All rights reserved.
The New Racism
Article
  • May 1991
This study combines the methodological advantages of a fully experimental design and a genuinely representative survey sample to explore the nature and workings of contemporary racial prejudice. The correlational results both replicate and extend the findings of earlier work. Political conservatism, for example, was found once again to be correlated with opposition to policies to assist blacks and with support for negative images of blacks as lazy and irresponsible. The experimental results, however, pose fundamental challenges to symbolic and modern racism theories, which contend that there is a new kind of racism in America that takes the form of racial prejudice plus traditional, conservative values. The experimental results demonstrate, on the one hand, that conservatives are not more likely to refuse government help to blacks who have violated traditional values; on the other hand, the results demonstrate that conservatives are more likely to favor government help for blacks who have acted in accord with traditional values. The experimental results, moreover, identify a key condition for the expression of discrimination--a focus on group rather than individual claimants--and demonstrate that discrimination is not encouraged by a particular ideological outlook, conservative or liberal, but rather is most common in the absence of any ideological stance.
Communication and Collective Actions: A Survey Experiment on Motivating Energy Conservation in the U.S.
Article
  • Mar 2014
When do citizens take action to benefit the public good, even when individual benefits are scant or non-existent? We address this question with a focus on an area of critical importance when it comes to environmental sustainability—specifically, we examine citizens' actions in the domain of energy conservation. We do so by using a survey experiment to evaluate the impact of exposure to communications posited to shape collective action behavior. We find that communications shape behavior depending on two primary factors not previously studied in concert: to whom responsibility is attributed for collective outcomes; and, what effects, or consequences, are associated with one's actions. We find that communications emphasizing individual responsibility and collective environmental benefits can stimulate collective action.