Yale Program on Climate Change Communication

5. Personal and Social Engagement with Global Warming

5.1. Most Americans “rarely” or “never” discuss global warming with family and friends.

More than six in ten Americans (64%) say they “rarely” or “never” discuss global warming with family and friends. Fewer than four in ten (36%) say they discuss global warming “occasionally” or “often,” but that reflects a 10 percentage-point increase over the past five years (since our March 2015 survey).

5.2. About half of Americans hear about global warming in the media at least once a month; fewer hear people they know talking about it at least once a month.

About half of Americans (47%) say they hear about global warming in the media once a month or more frequently. This marks an increase of seven percentage points since we first asked the question five years ago (in March 2015), but a nine percentage-point decrease since our previous survey in November 2019 (see Data Tables in the report PDF, p. 82). About one in three Americans (32%) say they hear about global warming in the media several times a year or less often, a 7-point increase since last November. Eight percent say they never hear about global warming in the media.

Only about one in five Americans (22%) say they hear people they know talk about global warming once a month or more frequently. In contrast, 46% say they hear people they know talk about it several times a year or less often. About one in four (24%) say they never hear people they know talk about global warming.

5.3. Two in three Americans say the issue of global warming is personally important.

Two in three Americans (66%) say the issue of global warming is either “extremely” (13%), “very” (24%), or “somewhat” (29%) important to them personally. One in three (33%) say global warming is either “not too” (20%) or “not at all” (13%) personally important.

5.4. Fewer than half of Americans perceive social norms for taking action on global warming.

Social science research has shown that two types of social norms can have a powerful influence on people’s behavior: injunctive norms – the belief that friends and family expect you to behave in a given way; and descriptive norms – the belief that friends and family are themselves behaving in that way.Ballew, M. T., Goldberg, M. H., Rosenthal, S. A., Cutler, M. J., & Leiserowitz, A. (2019). Climate change activism among Latino and White Americans. Frontiers in Communication, 3(58), 1-15. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2018.00058/full^,Cialdini, R. B. (2003). Crafting normative messages to protect the environment. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 12(4), 105-109. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/14678721.01242^,Doherty, K. L., & Webler, T. N. (2016). Social norms and efficacy beliefs drive the Alarmed segment’s public-sphere climate actions. Nature Climate Change, 6, 879-884. https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate3025^,Schultz, P. W., Nolan, J. M., Cialdini, R. B., Goldstein, N. J., & Griskevicius, V. (2007). The constructive, destructive, and reconstructive power of social norms. Psychological Science, 18(5), 429-434. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.14679280.2007.01917. x

About half of Americans (47%) perceive an injunctive norm, saying it is either “extremely” (5%), “very” (12%), or “moderately” important (30%) to their family and friends that they take action to reduce global warming. Fewer Americans (44%) perceive a descriptive norm, saying their family and friends make either “a great deal of effort” (2%), “a lot of effort” (6%), or “a moderate amount of effort” (37%) to reduce global warming.

5.5. Two in three Americans feel a personal sense of responsibility to help reduce global warming.

Two in three Americans (66%) either “strongly” (22%) or “somewhat” (44%) agree that they feel a personal sense of responsibility to help reduce global warming.