How do people change their beliefs about climate change? A qualitative study on opinion shift in the U.S. Midwest

Abstract

Beliefs and attitudes about climate change are the building blocks from which humans create and support mitigation and adaptation strategies. In the United States, 72% of the public now believes that the earth is warming and 58% believe humans are the cause. Although these figures represent some increase since 2010, they also represent a significant remaining gap in acceptance of climate change realties. While a wealth of research has identified isolated factors that influence opinions on climate change, less attention has been given to understanding the process that changes people’s opinions. Our study uniquely applies qualitative methods to examine the context and experiences underlying climate change opinion shift. We conducted in-depth interviews with 15 participants in Kansas City and its surrounding peri-urban and rural communities who had changed their beliefs on fundamental climate change realities and were purposely selected for diversity across political ideology, age, and urban/ rural residence. We inductively coded transcripts and synthesized codes into a hierarchical structure to derive themes. Findings suggest that prior to shifting beliefs, participants were similarly skeptical or rejecting of climate change, while remaining diverse in the ideologies that influenced these beliefs. For most participants, shifting beliefs were catalyzed by three key experiences: (1) distancing from ideological community, (2) desire to seek out information, and (3) solidifying experiences of gradual or epiphanic realization. Despite these common experiences, attitudes following change in beliefs remained diverse. Our framework can guide individuals and organizations in facilitating greater acceptance of climate change realities through interpersonal and public communication strategies.

Full text

Received: 20 December 2023 / Accepted: 21 November 2024 / Published online: 15 January 2025
© The Author(s) 2024
Emily A. Hurley
eahurley@cmh.edu
1 Division of Health Services and Outcomes Research, Children’s Mercy Kansas City, 2401
Gillham Road, Kansas City, MO 64108, USA
2 Department of Pediatrics, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine, 2411
Holmes Street, Kansas City, MO, USA
3 Department of Population Health, University of Kansas Medical Center, 3901 Rainbow
Boulevard, Kansas City, KS, USA
4 School of Natural Resources, University of Missouri, 1111 E Rollins Rd, Columbia, MO, USA
How do people change their beliefs about climate change? A
qualitative study on opinion shift in the U.S. Midwest
Emily A.Hurley1,2,3 · Micheal S.Molloy4
Climatic Change (2025) 178:8
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-024-03835-x
Abstract
Beliefs and attitudes about climate change are the building blocks from which humans
create and support mitigation and adaptation strategies. In the United States, 72% of the
public now believes that the earth is warming and 58% believe humans are the cause.
Although these gures represent some increase since 2010, they also represent a signi-
cant remaining gap in acceptance of climate change realties. While a wealth of research
has identied isolated factors that inuence opinions on climate change, less attention
has been given to understanding the process that changes people’s opinions. Our study
uniquely applies qualitative methods to examine the context and experiences underlying
climate change opinion shift. We conducted in-depth interviews with 15 participants in
Kansas City and its surrounding peri-urban and rural communities who had changed their
beliefs on fundamental climate change realities and were purposely selected for diversity
across political ideology, age, and urban/ rural residence. We inductively coded transcripts
and synthesized codes into a hierarchical structure to derive themes. Findings suggest
that prior to shifting beliefs, participants were similarly skeptical or rejecting of climate
change, while remaining diverse in the ideologies that inuenced these beliefs. For most
participants, shifting beliefs were catalyzed by three key experiences: (1) distancing from
ideological community, (2) desire to seek out information, and (3) solidifying experiences
of gradual or epiphanic realization. Despite these common experiences, attitudes following
change in beliefs remained diverse. Our framework can guide individuals and organiza-
tions in facilitating greater acceptance of climate change realities through interpersonal
and public communication strategies.
Keywords Climate change · Qualitative research · Beliefs · Opinions
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Climatic Change (2025) 178:8
1 Background
Public attitudes, opinions and beliefs1 about climate change provide foundation for societal
response to the crisis, inuencing everything from individual environmental behaviors to
broader support for policy-level action (Leiserowitz 2005; Weber and Stern 2011). Since
2008, Yale’s Climate Change in the American Mind (CCAM) surveys have systematically
assessed public attitudes, opinions and beliefs regarding climate change across the United
States. The latest 2023 survey estimated that 72% [69–75%] believe “global warming is
happening” and 58% [55–61%] believe it is “caused mostly by human activities” (Leise-
rowitz et al. 2024). While these gures represent an increase since a low point in 2010, when
57% [54%−60%] believed global warming was happening and 47% [44–50%] believed its
human cause, data from CCAM and other sources suggest no substantial increase in public
opinion on the fundamental realities of climate change since the early 2000s or since 2016
(Leiserowitz et al. 2024; Gallop Organization 2024). Understanding how individuals shift
their opinions of these fundamental realities of climate change is critical in shaping com-
munication strategies aimed at garnering public support for climate action.
Attitudes and beliefs about climate change are generally reective of political, family,
religious, and/or social identity (Stedman 2004; Kellstedt et al. 2008; Scannell and Giord
2013; Brulle et al. 2012; Leviston et al. 2014; Devine-Wright et al. 2015; Carmichael and
Brulle 2017; Hornsey et al. 2016; McCright et al. 2016; Shao 2016; Shao et al. 2016; Shao
and Goidel 2016; Kerr and Wilson 2018; Bostrom et al. 2019). Gender and generational
dierences are also apparent, with women and younger generations more likely to accept
realties of climate change. Beliefs can also be inuenced by direct experience of the cri-
sis, a factor becoming increasingly prevalent as 3.4 million Americans were exposed to
extreme weather events in 2022 alone (Hornsey et al. 2016; Ballew et al. 2019; Brown and
Hamilton 2024; U.S. Census Bureau 2023). Trust in science, exposure to media coverage,
localized messaging, elite cues, perceived social norms, and interactions with others are
also known to inuence climate change opinions (Brulle et al. 2012; Carmichael and Brulle
2017; Ballew et al. 2022; Brown and Hamilton 2024).
This multitude of inuential factors can be understood through several theoretical per-
spectives. McCright and colleagues (2016) identify ve: (1) Values-Beliefs-Norms Theory,
which explains how individuals adopt beliefs that are compatible with their worldview and
values; (2) Anti Reexivity Thesis, which claims the political Right is more dismissive of
the problems caused by industrial capitalism than the political Left; (3) Gender Socializa-
tion Theory, which argues that females are more likely to be socialized toward empathy
and care; (4) Postmaterialist Values Thesis, which describes how younger and more au-
ent individuals have stronger pro-environmental views because their other basic needs are
met; and (5) Cultural Theory; which explains how various cultural worldviews and societal
structure shape perceptions of environmental risk and collective action. These theories high-
1 We use the term “attitude” to mean "a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular
entity with some degree of favor or disfavor" (Eagly and Chaiken 1993, p. 1). Generally, “beliefs” are viewed
as more rigid, deeply rooted convictions closely tied to identity and values, while “opinions” are more ex-
ible, subject to change with new information, and typically relate to more specic issues (Frankish 1998).
A person’s acceptance of core climate change realities (its existence and roots in human activity) could be
thought of as belief, opinion, or both. In this paper, we use “belief” and “opinion” interchangeably when
referring to one’s acceptance of climate change realities, which is also reective of how the terms appeared
in our data.
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Climatic Change (2025) 178:8
light various inuences on opinion, which as McCright and colleagues explain, can coexist
or interact. While they all associate climate change beliefs with dierent facets of identity,
they do not adequately explain how beliefs may change, if the experience of change exhibits
common features across dierent identities and worldviews, as well as how changed beliefs
are reassumed within identity and work to inuence related opinions.
Despite the growing body of literature that identies factors and theoretical underpin-
nings related to climate change opinion, less attention has been given to understanding the
processes and experiences that change opinion. A 2018 supplement to the CCAM survey
examined individuals that changed their mind about climate change, with the overwhelm-
ing majority reporting becoming “more concerned” about the issue versus less (Deeg et al.
2019). Although some demographic groups showed slightly higher likelihood of opinion
change (women more likely than men, Democrats more likely than Independents, older
adults more likely than younger), shifts in opinion were generally consistent across dierent
age, sex, educational level, and political party groups. Reported reasons for increased con-
cern included directly experiencing climate change impacts (21%), taking it more seriously
(for unspecied reasons, 20%) and becoming more informed (20%). Notably, a full 24%
did not provide a clear or complete response. Beyond CCAM, other survey-based research
examining opinion shift has identied the inuence of social norms and messaging (featur-
ing political mobilization, morality appeals, and/or extreme weather). (Brulle et al. 2012;
Salomon et al. 2017; Egan and Mullin 2017; Ballew et al. 2022). One large longitudinal
study found opinion change was signicantly associated with political ideology, party iden-
tication, relative concern about environmental conservation and economic development,
and, to small extent, exposure to extreme weather events (Palm et al. 2017).
Theoretical explanations for opinion change are less developed in the literature. Palm
and colleagues situate their work within the Theory of Motivated Reasoning, which
explains how emotional biases and social identity serve as lters for new information (Palm
et al. 2017). Social network inuence, cognitive dissonance, and information processing
biases have also been described within and outside of climate change literature as part of the
complexities of opinion change (Nielsen et al. 2021; McGrath 2017; Dennison et al. 2023;
Merry and Mattingly 2023). These theories provide valuable insights into some factors that
can inuence opinion shifts in a population. However, they do not oer a complete perspec-
tive of an individual’s journey to opinion change, nor how multiple inuential factors may
appear or interact within an individual experience. Psychology’s classic Transtheoretical, or
“stages of change” model, has been widely applied to describe the overall process of how
individuals change behavior, but may be problematic to apply to a change in opinion that
could result in a variety of behavioral outcomes (Prochaska and Diclemente 1982).
While survey-based research and theoretical discourse oer some insight into climate
change opinion shift, we still lack a deep understanding of the process and experiences that
underly changes within individuals (Egan and Mullin 2017). Qualitative methodology- spe-
cically grounded theory that co-constructs and analyzes in-depth interviews—is uniquely
positioned to oer such insights but has rarely been applied to understanding climate change
opinions. Kleinberg and Toomey (2023) were among the rst to apply qualitative methodol-
ogy to broadly explore climate change attitudes in the United States. Their work demon-
strated the importance of uncovering the nuance and diversity underlying the quantitative
data currently dominating the literature on climate change opinion. They advocate for the
expanded use of qualitative methods in building a more comprehensive understanding of
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Climatic Change (2025) 178:8
environmental perspectives that can guide eective scientic communication. While Klein-
berg and Toomey do apply qualitative methods to explore climate change attitudes, we have
yet to see in-depth qualitative studies that examine process and construct explanatory frame-
works. By applying qualitative methodology to climate change opinion shift research, we
can move our understanding beyond statistical trends and oer contextual insight into how
and why shifts occur. Although ndings are expected to resonate with many existing theo-
retical explanations for opinion formation, they are also expected to oer novel insight into
the dynamics of inuences on climate change opinion revision via novel processual view.
While climate change opinions are innitely more complex than the belief of its exis-
tence and its anthropogenic cause, examining how individuals come to change their beliefs
on these two fundamental realities serves as an essential starting point. Understanding com-
monalities across experiences of individuals with changed beliefs can help align community
and population-level communication strategies aiming to encourage further acceptance of
climate change realities. In this study, we use qualitative methods to explore the experience
of individuals in Kansas City and its surrounding communities who came to accept the exis-
tence and/or human cause of climate change after previously stating disbelief. We aimed to
identify common features of their experiences and to generate an explanatory framework to
better understand the overall process of individual opinion change.
2 Methods
2.1 Setting and participants
We conducted a qualitative study guided by grounded theory methodology with participants
residing in Kansas City and surrounding rural and suburban communities in Kansas (KS)
and Missouri (MS) (Charmaz 2006; Mnanga et al. 2019). The region is notable for being
particularly vulnerable to climate change, with extreme weather expected to decrease crop
yields by 50% and quadruple the number of days over 100 degrees Fahrenheit by the year
2050 (Pryor et al. 2014). Paradoxically, the region’s population tends to exhibit more con-
servative opinions and beliefs on climate change compared to the rest of the country. At the
time we conducted our study (beginning in 2019, into 2020) both states had similar propor-
tions of people who believed that “global warming is happening” (63% [60–66%]) and
who believed that “global warming is caused mostly by human activities” (48% [45–51%];
Leiserowitz et al. 2019).
We recruited participants for initial screening using a variety of in-person (distributing
yers at grocery stores, community events) and virtual strategies (listservs, social media
postings). Interested individuals were directed to an online eligibility screening. Participants
were eligible if they lived within a 50-mile radius of Kansas City (determined by zip code),
were 18 years of age or older, and indicated one or more changes in responses to two items
from the CCAM survey: (1) “Do you think global warming is happening?” (Yes/No/Don’t
know) and (2) “Assuming global warming is happening, do you think it is…” (Caused
mostly by human activities/ Caused mostly by natural changes in the environment/ None of
the above because global warming isn’t happening/ Other/ Don’t know). Specically, par-
ticipants were asked to answer these questions rst in past tense with the stem “Five years
ago...” and then a second time in present tense. Those who indicated a shift from “Yes” to
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Climatic Change (2025) 178:8
“No” in the rst item or a shift from “Caused mostly by natural changes in the environ-
ment” to “Caused mostly by human activities” in the second item were eligible. We then
employed an iterative, purposive sampling strategy to invite selected participants for inter-
views (Charmaz 2006). We aimed for a maximum diversity of demographics to construct
a sample that together provided the dierent perspectives necessary in gaining a holistic
understanding of opinion shift in the region. We planned to recruit until we reached thematic
saturation, an estimated 12–18 interviews based on established guidance (Guest et al. 2006).
2.2 Data collection
Individuals who passed the eligibility screening were invited to give their contact informa-
tion if they were interested in scheduling an in-depth interview and to answer additional
demographic and climate opinion questions. Interviews were conducted in-person in private
spaces (e.g., private rooms at public libraries and workplaces) or by phone, according to
participant preference. The rst author or a trained research assistant conducted the inter-
views using semi-structured guides with open-ended questions and optional probes. At the
start of the interview, participants were asked to describe the rst thing that came to their
mind when they thought of climate change. They were then asked to review their answers
from the CCAM eligibility screener questions, elaborate on their shift in opinion, and reect
further on their relationship with climate change. Participants were also asked to reect on
their current attitudes and beliefs related to climate change action by answering and elabo-
rating on additional items from the CCAM survey. Participants were required to give verbal
informed consent prior to the interview and were oered a $25 gift card upon completion.
2.3 Data analysis
Analysis began alongside data collection, with interviewer debrieng and memoing to track
emerging themes and diversity of perspectives (Charmaz 2006). Audio-recordings of inter-
views were transcribed and uploaded into Dedoose Version 9.0.17 for coding. We coded
inductively, meaning we did not begin with predened codes, but generated codes based
on interpretation of raw data. To begin, both authors performed a line-by-line inductive
coding to generate rst-round codes on two common transcripts. We prioritized in vivo cod-
ing, which uses the participant’s own words to create these rst-round codes (e.g. “not on
my radar” and “gradual realization”). We met repeatedly to compare and synthesize initial
codes, apply revised codes to additional transcripts, and rene and re-arrange codes into
a hierarchical structure (with codes and sub-codes). We continued coding common tran-
scripts until intercoder consensus was reached on a codebook, which was then applied to the
remaining transcripts (Cascio et al. 2019).
Codes in the nal codebook were categorized as “Attitudes/Emotional Responses” (e.g.
“skeptical”, “worry/concern”), “Experiences” (e.g. “seeing the data”, “interacting with oth-
ers”), “Perceptions” (e.g. “not my responsibility”, “political perceptions and self-identica-
tion”), and “Actions/Behaviors” (e.g. “seeking out information”, “lifestyle changes”). We
also included codes to indicate when text was related to before, during, or after the partici-
pants’ opinion shift, and often applied codes in an overlapping manner. When all transcripts
were coded with the nal codebook, we reviewed excerpts under each code and created code
summaries of the ndings. We also created participant case summaries, which summarized
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Climatic Change (2025) 178:8
the codes pertaining to key events for each participant. Through memoing, reviewing of
the code and case summaries, and examination of code presence by participant, we further
synthesized ndings (main themes and process) into an explanatory framework. To enhance
credibility of the ndings, we conducted an additional verication of the nal explanatory
framework, where both researchers reviewed the raw transcripts, case summaries, and code
presence tables to evaluate the evidence for each of the main themes in each interview.
3 Results
A total of 177 individuals completed the screening survey, with 53 eligible. We conducted
interviews with 15 participants (Table 1). Participants ranged in age (20–85 years), political
aliation (33.3% Democrat, 13.3% Republican, 6.7% Independent, 40% other) and resi-
dence (26.7% with zip codes situated in rural areas, 20% suburban, 40% urban, and 13.3%
with zip codes spanning urban and suburban areas). Most were female (66.7%), white/
non-Hispanic (86.7%), and had a college degree (93.3%). During the course of iterative
sampling, fourteen other participants were invited for interviews but did not respond. A full
recording was not available for one participant, so while memoing on this participant con-
tributed to our overall analysis, the transcript was not available for direct coding. Our quali-
Table1 Characteristics of interview participants (n = 15)
Par-
tici-
pant
#
Age Sex Race/ Ethnicity Political Aliation Residence1Education Level
1 28 M White/ Non-Hispanic Other- “Democratic
Socialist”
Suburban Undergraduate
degree
2 31 F White/ Non-Hispanic Independent Rural Graduate degree
3 57 F White/ Non-Hispanic Prefer not to answer Urban/Suburban Undergraduate
degree
4 53 M White/ Non-Hispanic Other Urban Graduate degree
5 60 F White/ Non-Hispanic Democrat Suburban Graduate degree
6 25 F White/ Non-Hispanic Other- “moderate” Urban Graduate degree
7 63 F Hispanic /Latino Democrat Rural Graduate degree
8 60 F Black/ African
American
Democrat Urban High school
degree or GED
9 71 M White/ Non-Hispanic Democrat Urban/Suburban Undergraduate
degree
10 37 M White/ Non-Hispanic Republican Urban Undergraduate
degree
11 85 M White/ Non-Hispanic Democrat Urban Graduate degree
12 31 F White/ Non-Hispanic Prefer not to answer Suburban Undergraduate
degree
13 59 F White/ Non-Hispanic Other- “Independent
leaning Libertarian”
Rural Graduate degree
14 38 F White/ Non-Hispanic Republican Rural Undergraduate
degree
15 20 F White/ Non-Hispanic Democrat Urban Undergraduate
degree
1Residence determi ned by zip code. “Urban /suburban” refers to zip codes that span the municipal boarders
of Kansas City and surrounding suburban commu nities
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Climatic Change (2025) 178:8
tative ndings characterize: (1) the participants’ attitudes and perceptions before changing
their opinion; (2) the pattern of key experiences that catalyzed their opinion change (dis-
tancing from ideological community, desire to seek out new information, and solidifying
experiences of gradual or epiphanic realization); and (3) their current views.
Figure 1 depicts these themes as a process that catalyzes individual shift in core beliefs
about climate change. Of the fourteen participants whose transcripts were available for full
analysis, ten generally exhibited this pattern of three key experiences, one partially t the
pattern, and three only exhibited a gradual realization.
Reecting on the time before changing their opinion, participants described their attitudes
toward climate change as skeptical, dismissive, ignorant, and/or derisive. Skepticism was
most common (“I was never what you would call a denier. I would say I was skeptical” [Par-
ticipant #9 (P9)]) and often fueled the other attitudes. As one participant described, skepti-
cism led her to dismiss or “block out” climate change because it “didn’t seem real” (P1). In
dismissing the seriousness of the issue, some felt climate change “wasn’t my responsibility”
(P1), “was already solved” (P1), or simply that “other issues seemed more important at the
time” (P5). Another described initial skepticism, followed by general ignorance of climate
change evidence in her own surroundings.
“I didn’t really let it take up space in my mind. I just thought, ‘Okay, this was a hot
summer, this was a wet summer, this was a cold winter’” (P3).
Many younger participants further attributed their prior ignorance and/or dismissiveness
about climate change to their stage of life, and described their opinion change as parallel
to their broader coming-of-age. Some had grown up in conservative households, were not
exposed to much information on climate change in school and/or reected on their younger
selves as “a little bit selsh. I feel like I mean, just like concerned with my own issues versus
bigger issues that are going to aect more people” (P15).
Three participants described their former selves as derisive, or actively rejecting and
ridiculing the realities of climate change. These participants were skeptical of the issue “as
a politically charged item and not necessarily holding a lot of science” (P4). Some recalled
having rst heard about climate change from Democratic politicians (commonly Al Gore),
or people who they perceived as having ulterior motives (like “somebody just trying to get
to me go vegan” [P6]). In not identifying with their ideology, these participants saw mes-
sengers of climate change information as primarily motivated by political or personal gain,
and thus, not credible. In rejecting information that they found unreliable, some participants
Fig.1 Experiences that catalyze individual shift in beliefs about the existence of climate change and/or
its roots in human action
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Climatic Change (2025) 178:8
decided that “climate change felt like a joke” (P4) and would actively distance themselves
from climate change ideology by mocking it in their social circles (“electric cars- they’re
so dumb” [P7], “it just snowed ve feet in Bualo, New York. Take that global warming”
[P6]).
(2) Key experiences that catalyze opinion change
In changing their opinion, most participants’ experiences followed a general process of (1)
distancing from their ideological community, (2) a desire to seek out information, leading to
(3) a gradual or epiphanic realization that solidied their shift in opinion.
2.1. Distancing from ideological community
On the pathway to changing their opinion, participants experienced a distancing from an
ideological community that had inuenced their prior worldview and identity. While some
participants described this experience in more depth than others, most participant narratives
contained evidence that opinion shift originated with some “distancing” from family, social
networks, political party and/or other group that they identied with. This distancing was
not an active decision by participants to expose themselves to climate change information,
but an experience they found themselves in that gave them perspective to newly question
ideologies that they had come to internalize.
Sometimes, distance from their ideological community began with physical distancing,
with some participants describing seminal experiences of travel, moving, or going o to
college.
“In high school, I was a theater kid. I wasn’t really paying a lot of attention to politics
or to biology. […] When I went to college, one of the classes I took was historical
geology […] so that really sparked curiosity in me” (P15).
Yet physical distance was not required for participants to encounter new perspectives
through social and/or cognitive distance from their ideological communities. Inuential
interactions with trusted individuals could result from participants pursuing a new interest
or encountering someone from their existing networks whose opinion had shifted after their
own distancing.
“I got very interested in regenerative agriculture. […] And the more I got interested in
that, again, it kind of became irrefutable to hear people who were like, ‘Hey, I've been
doing this type of agriculture for 20 years and crops are blooming at dierent times
and crops are coming in at dierent times and I'm now growing crops that I couldn't
have grown 20 years ago. […] And they have no ulterior motive in saying ‘Hey, this
is a problem’” (P10).
“One of my very good friends who was also one of my roommates moved out to
California for several years for AmeriCorps and Teach for America. And so, she was
kind of just exposed to a dierent area of the country she'd never been to before” (P6).
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Climatic Change (2025) 178:8
“I have a good friend who heard Joe Kennedy [current elected ocial] talk […], and
so she became very impassioned about the environment. She started educating me,
and so, gradually, I listened to her” (P5).
2.2. Desire to seek out informationWhile distancing from ideological community typi-
cally began as a passive or happenstance experience, it often created a desire in participants
to actively follow up on the new perspectives they encountered by seeking out more infor-
mation on climate change. Some participants sought information with the intent of defend-
ing their original stance and wound up facing cognitive dissonance.
“If you have an opinion that's counter to what other people are saying and feeling,
then you're going to want some way to back that up, and when you start looking into
it, you're not going to nd evidence to back that up as much as misinformation, if
anything” (P1).
“So I just wanted to genuinely know more about it and kind of understand […] Kind
of in my gut, I was like, ‘Okay. If we're going to be mocking it, then we need to have
a good reason to mock it.’ And then as I was reading more about it, I was like, ‘Okay,
we actually don't have a good reason to mock it. And just because it snows ve feet,
doesn't mean that the Earth isn't increasing in temperature’” (P4).
In seeking out information with intentionality, participants often became skeptical of
sources of information they had previously encountered passively or through their original
ideological communities. This further spurred their desire to identify credible information
on their own; in particular, steering away from political and cultural discourse in favor of
more scientic sources.
“I stopped listening to [popular news sources] after a while because there was such
a political slant to them. And it was more benecial for me to actually read literature
and learn who the leading scientists were who were studying the eects of climate
change and global warming and to actually see the data and not have it interrupted
through a lens that was a journalistic in a way” (P6).
“I nally got o of my little nice little shell in suburbia and started looking around.
And I used to be a teacher and I remember arguing back in 2005 with a teacher when
An Inconvenient Truth came out. I would argue with her that that was just a bunch
of bologna and that it was just cyclical. But then I started looking at what scientists
were saying - because I don't consider Al Gore [a scientist]. […] And then that's when
I went ahead and I started actually looking for information on my own to see” (P7).
2.3. Solidifying experiences of gradual or epiphanic realizationFollowing ideological
distancing and seeking out information, participants describe one or more experiences that
solidied their shift in opinion and resolved cognitive dissonance. They described their
realization as either gradual or epiphanic, characterized by conrming experiences where
they were able to process the new information they had gathered amid interactions with the
natural and/or social world.
Repeatedly seeking out and processing information they deemed credible led some par-
ticipants to “open up the worldview” (P6) and eventually accept the existence or cause of
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Climatic Change (2025) 178:8
climate change. To them, their opinion shift was “a gradual process” (P13) of “challenging
a lot of ideas that had just kind of sat under the surface's assumptions” (P1).
“I don't know if there was necessarily a moment [when my opinion changed]. I think
it was just the realization seeing graphs of, "Yes. See? The temperature is steadily
rising" (P6).
Other participants described a memorable, epiphanic experience where they accepted a fun-
damental shift in their opinion. For some, it was witnessing a change in the natural world
that reected and conrmed the new information they had encountered:
“It seemed like it was a Democratic issue […] And so for me, it was like, well, I'm not
sure I see the evidence of that as clearly as it was being presented by them […] I went
to Alaska twice and so then I was able to see some things with my own eyes” (P4).
These encounters with the natural world could also be peripheral, like seeing extreme cli-
matic events covered in the media:
“And then the forest […] burning in Australia, and you're like, "Oh my gosh, it’s [cli-
mate change is] everywhere" (P3).
Some described epiphanies when learning about the human impact of climate change. When
watching a documentary about the Solomon Islands, one participant recalls being struck
with the realization, “Oh, it’s aecting people… that didn’t even enter into my equation”
(P7).
Participants could experience both a gradual acceptance of the evidence they were
encountering as well as epiphanic, memorable moment when their acceptance awakened
them to reconsider their own role in addressing climate change.
“As soon as you do believe that people are responsible, then it's kind of the pull-your-
hair-out moment you're like, ‘Oh, we've really got to change a lot of stu to x this’"
(P10).
“Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went to the [sit-in]. It made national news, people got
arrested. And it was at that moment that I was like, I'm like 10 years older than most
of the people there who were getting arrested, and I was like, what am I even doing? I
am the adult here and I'm sitting on my couch, just worried" (P1).
2.4. Participants who did not exhibit pattern of key experiencesIn four transcripts, we
did not nd evidence of the pattern of key experiences described above (Table 2). One
participant (P2) described distancing from ideological community but seemed to come to a
gradual realization of climate change realities without evidence of actively seeking out more
information (P2). Of the participants that did not exhibit distancing or seeking out informa-
tion, one (P13) did not oer extensive enough responses to determine the presence of these
two key experiences, while two others explained their opinion shift as purely a product of
gradual realization. While participants who sought out information described data and sci-
entic evidence as solidifying their gradual realization (Type 1, Table 2), these participants
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Climatic Change (2025) 178:8
described a gradual realization through observing changing weather patterns around them
(Type 2, Table 2).
“I mean it could be 70 or 80 [degrees]. And then-- the next day I know the temperature
then dropped to like 30 and 40” (P8).
“The seasons- I mean how they've changed so much drastically since I was a kid. I
mean we don't really have a spring. We don't really have a fall. Winters are unpredict-
able […] And so, I think that's one thing that's got me” (P14).
Table2 Participant-by-participant details of climate change opinion shift
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Climatic Change (2025) 178:8
(3) Current views
After recalibrating their identity to accept the existence and/or human cause of climate
change, participants landed on a still wide spectrum of opinions and attitudes about the
issue. They all, however, shared one aspect of their new self-identity– that they did not
consider themselves experts on climate change. In interviews, participants often oered
disclaimers about their limited knowledge, humbly recognizing their past opinions as inac-
curate and expressing desire to learn more.
“As you can probably tell, I’m still a little bit on the uncomfortable side discussing it
[…] I’m happy to have you interview me, but I’m not an expert. I’m just a guy” (P4).
“I don’t know a lot about but wind energy, but I want to learn more about that” (P3).
Table2 (continued)
1Initial attitudes and perceptions: Final classications emerged from line-by-line coding of participants’ de-
scriptions of their prior attitudes and perceptions. “Dismissive” emerged from in vivo codes of “not a serious
problem” and “thought it was already solved.” “Ignorance” emerged from codes “not on my radar” and
“ignored it.” “Skepticism” was the original code, a term used by participants themselves to describe their
doubts regarding information on climate change. “Derisiveness” emerged from the in vivo code “mocked it”
and represents participants who actively rejected and ridiculed climate change information
2Gray boxes indicate evidence of the experience in the participant’s interview
3 “Distancing from ideological community” composites of a range of original codes, including experiential
codes such as “interactions with others”, “professional or educational experience”, “coming of age”, as well
as perception codes indicating participant’s discussion of their community, family, religious and/or political
identity
4 “Desire to seek out information” emerged from the original in vivo code “seeking out information”
5 “Gradual realization” and “Epiphanic realization” represent researcher categorization of how participant de-
scribed solidifying their new opinion. Gradual: (Type 1 = through seeing data and/or absorbing information;
Type 2 = through observing changes in weather or natural surroundings); Epiphanic realizations were “wake
up calls,” or memorable events that solidied the reality, resolved cognitive dissonance, and/or signicantly
raised the seriousness of the issue for the participant
6( +) and (–) representparticipants’ description of themselves after their opinion change as being ( +) or not
being (-): (1) “Worried” = based on CCAM questionnaire response, with + indicating “somewhat” or “very”
worried and– indicating “not very” or “not at all” worried; (2) “Supportive” = based on “attitudes toward
macrolevel solutions”, revealing if participant was generally supportive of macrolevel solutions specied in
CCAM (e.g., energy policy/regulation, electric car programs, green infrastructure, carbon tax, tax rebates);
(3) “Active” = based on presence of codes indicating personal action such as “voting/activism” and “lifestyle
changes”
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Climatic Change (2025) 178:8
Yet other than commonly recognizing the limits of their knowledge, participants represented
a wide spectrum of beliefs, attitudes, and opinions on the nuances of climate change and its
solution. A majority recognized the human impact on the climate and expressed desired to
be a part of the solution through voting and activism, limiting their personal carbon foot-
print, and educating others. However, a few who accepted the existence of climate change
remained skeptical about its human cause.
“Is it because of humans or is it an earthly cycle that we can’t really impact? I guess
that’s where […] I’m kind of questioning” (P4).
According to their Yale Climate Attitudes survey responses, most participants reported
being “very worried” (n = 6) or “somewhat worried” (n = 5) about the issue. In interviews,
many participants described particular concern for future generations, with one explaining
how climate change has made her hesitant to have children.
“I am concerned about having my own children because as uncomfortable as I think
it might get in my lifetime […] what kind of quality of life would that child have?”
(P12).
This worry often translated into support for macrolevel actions to address climate change.
One participant elaborated on his rejection of capitalism system entirely (“It has to cap out
because we have nite resources in the world” [P1]). Many others described support for
policies like taxing or regulating carbon emissions and investing in clean energy.
A few remained “not very worried” (n = 2) or “not at all worried” (n = 1). In explaining
how switching to solar energy would be prohibitively expensive for her family, one partici-
pant explained how climate change was not among the immediate problems her family and
community is concerned with.
“We shouldn't have to stop using what we use [energy sources] because it's not all, to
me my family, it's not that great of an issue here […] It's so expensive though if we're
going to use the solar. But I don't think that we need to change because I don't think
that there's a problem here” (P8).
Another participant described how he worried less about climate change and more about
what he considered an overreaching government response.
“I’m more concerned with government abuse justied through climate change […]
don’t let it be used to justify a larger government such as federal coming in and gain-
ing control of our state land or even towns and cities” (P13).
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Climatic Change (2025) 178:8
4 Discussion
While previous studies have identied factors inuencing climate opinion, ours employs
grounded theory-guided qualitative methods to explore causal mechanisms of opinion
change as a comprehensive process. We present our results as an explanatory framework
that rst interprets individuals’ appraisals of their initial attitudes toward climate change as
skeptical, ignorant, dismissive and/or derisive. Individuals may then have a series of experi-
ences that catalyze opinion shifts: distancing from pre-existing ideologies, a desire to seek
out credible information, and the eventual solidication of the new belief through gradual
and/or epiphanic realization. Our ndings also reveal the diversity of resulting opinions and
attitudes toward climate change response once individuals incorporate their new beliefs into
their worldview.
By elucidating processes through which individuals can change their beliefs about cli-
mate change, this study lls a critical gap in climate change public opinion literature. While
quantitative analyses have identied characteristics of people most likely to change their
mind on climate change, the diversity of our participants’ characteristics and self-narratives
before changing their opinion is a powerful reminder that people with vastly dierent back-
grounds and ideologies can look identical in their survey responses on fundamental climate
change beliefs (Deeg et al. 2019). Further, their attitudes and opinions after changing their
mind about climate change underscore the multiplicity of ideologies that can develop from
a shared core belief. In short, there is still no one-size-ts all messaging approach to garner
public support for climate change action, and even individuals who have newly opened
their worldview to accept climate change realities can hold diverse and nuanced opinions,
attitudes, and beliefs on the issue. They also may or may not subsequently adopt pro-envi-
ronmental behaviors, highlighting the potential problem of applying behavior change expla-
nations (e.g. “stages-of-change model”, Prochaska and Diclemente 1982) to these opinion
change narratives.
Despite participants’ diverse starting points and complex resulting opinions, we did iden-
tify powerful commonalities in the experience of changing their climate change beliefs that
communication eorts could leverage. First, most had an experience of distancing from
their ideological community, which is worth recognizing and capitalizing on. This nd-
ing reects theoretical and empirical work that demonstrates how an individual’s bonding
within their social network relates to their identity, ideology, and climate change attitudes
(McCright et al. 2016; Palm et al. 2017). Consistent with established Value-Belief-Norms
and other established theories, our participants’ narratives highlighted examples of beliefs
inuenced by identity and ideological communities (e.g. Anti Reexivity Thesis, Postmate-
rialist Values Thesis, Gender Socialization Theory; McCright et al. 2016). Our work addi-
tionally oers the concept of “distancing” from an ideological community as a common
rst step in opinion change. While social network bonding (within-network) ties are often
used to describe how climate change attitudes are formed and upheld, bridging ties (which
connect individuals to outside social networks) deserve a closer look as potentially powerful
usher of “distancing” experiences that can introduce alternative worldviews (Valente and
Pitts 2017). Intentional, interactive, personal communication about climate change could
be integrated into established activities that naturally serve as distancing experiences, such
as tourism or community gatherings that bring together people from dierent networks
(Nerlich et al. 2010). Future research could also explore the mechanisms and potential ben-
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Climatic Change (2025) 178:8
ets of fostering bridging relationships within distancing experiences. Research may also
explore how distancing experiences and bridging may possibly reect back into network
bonding ties, gradually reshaping opinions of ideological communities in aggregate.
Further, designers of public messaging should recognize that some individuals who may
be persuaded to change their beliefs based on facts will only do so if they are looking for
the facts themselves. While some participants described changing their minds as a response
to more passive observation, most exhibited a desire to actively seek out information in the
midst of the process. This nding provides more context to how motivated reasoning and
cognitive dissonance may arise in the experience of climate change opinion shift (Palm et
al. 2017; McGrath 2017). Beyond leveraging medium that the population deems credible,
eorts to communicate facts on climate change should also integrate accessible links to
additional credible information, facilitating the discovery process for those on the path to
changing their minds. Lastly, facilitating connection of information with personal experi-
ence can help create the gradual or epiphanic realization to arm one’s acceptance of the
issue. Media, events, tourism experiences or classes presenting climate change facts and
narratives should seek ways to help individuals integrate their newfound knowledge into
their personal experiences, encouraging reection on their evolving worldview.
Our ndings support the inuential role of interpersonal conversations in catalyzing
opinion change on climate realities, extending the advice of climate scientist Katherine
Hayhoe: “the most important thing you can do about climate change is talk about it” (Hay-
hoe 2021). The guidance she has popularized–anchoring conversations on shared values- is
backed by the science of persuasive communication (Baek and Falk 2018). Additionally, our
research supports the assertion that communicating with science deniers is not a hopeless
endeavor, but rather a potentially pivotal event in their opinion change (McIntyre 2021).
By breaking down the process of opinion change, our ndings provide additional guid-
ance for individuals hoping that they can help usher a change through conversation. First,
we should recognize opportunities for eective conversations when someone experiences
distance from their ideological community and is potentially open to new information. Our
ndings also suggest encouraging individuals to follow up with their own research may be
more empowering and less polarizing than simply stating facts, and that encouragement
for individuals to consider what they nd within their own experiences can help to solidify
their opinion change. Training on these interpersonal communication strategies may help
individuals who are in strategic positions to initiate conversations about climate change but
are often hesitant or unsure how to do so (Gómez-Martín et al. 2016).
On a broader scale, our work demonstrates the value of qualitative inquiry to ll out-
standing and emerging gaps in climate change opinion scholarship. The past two decades of
related research on climate opinion have been characterized by descriptive and experimen-
tal statistics that simply identify inuential factors. Qualitative research featuring in-depth
interviews and/or focus groups are vital in obtaining rich understanding of process and
context but have been woefully lacking (Maxwell 2012; Kleinberg and Toomey 2023). Our
research contributes to this eld by diverging from the preference to identify factors and
applies aspects of grounded theory to explore context and processes behind shifting climate
change opinions. Our work seeks to demonstrate the value and call for the greater inclu-
sion of constructivist, interpretative methodologies within science seeking to understand
the dynamics of climate change opinion (Maxwell 2012; Kleinberg and Toomey 2023). The
explanatory framework we produced can serve as a starting point to further develop theory
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Climatic Change (2025) 178:8
to understand climate opinion change and could be transformed into a testable hypothesis
for future quantitative studies.
Our study is not without limitations. Qualitative inquiry is hypothesis-generating, rep-
resentative of one of many possible truths, and not inherently designed to be generalizable.
We recognize our conclusions may have been dierent if we had conducted this study in a
dierent geographic and historical context. However, we hope that lessons learned from this
study may be transferrable to other settings and continue to hold value over time, particu-
larly in locales approaching a majority acceptance of climate change fundamental beliefs-
or a “tipping point” of opinion change similar to Missouri and Kansas at the time of this
study. Further, while our sample presented diversity in age, political aliation, and urban/
suburban/rural residence, it overrepresented females and was especially limited in racial/
ethnic and educational diversity. Women and highly-education individuals are often more
supportive of climate change action, and those that experienced opinion shift may have been
more enthusiastic to participate (McCright et al. 2016). While we employed various meth-
ods of recruitment, diversifying our recruitment eorts may have resulted in an even more
diverse sample, and allowed our resulting explanatory framework to be more inclusive of
their voices. However, there will always be individuals who are not willing to discuss their
climate change beliefs. Beyond in-depth interviews, future research may work to examine
our explanatory framework through other methods. For instance, it is possible to transform
the key experiences we have dened into survey items and integrate them into population-
based surveys (like CCAM) to better understand their presence or absence across dierent
demographic groups.
Our ndings oer a nuanced understanding of how individuals conceptualize and shift
opinions on climate change. Climate change communication programs and policies can use
these ndings to identify and nurture interpersonal communication opportunities, integrate
climate change messaging into distancing experiences, and craft messaging that capitalize
on commonalities of opinion-changing experiences. Strategic communication should also
be tailored to individuals’ diverse resulting attitudes and behaviors toward climate change
response. We hope our investigation of opinion change inspires further qualitative research
that can deepen our understanding of climate change opinions, attitudes and experiences.
Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Adam Grin for his work on recruitment, data col-
lection, and data management. Evelyn Donis de Miranda also provided support in developing the screening
tool. The authors also thank all of the participants who gave their valuable time and perspectives to this study.
Author contributions EAH designed the work, acquired data, and led the drafting of the manuscript. EAH
and MSM jointly analyzed and interpreted the data. MSM contributed to manuscript drafts and critical edits
for important intellectual content. Both authors approve of the nal version to be published.
Funding This study was funded by the Children’s Mercy Research Institute.
Data availability The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly
available due to but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Declarations
Ethics approval The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at Children’s Mercy Kansas City.
Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests.
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Climatic Change (2025) 178:8
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reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the
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