Yale Program on Climate Change Communication

9. Collective Efficacy

9.1 Thirty-eight percent of registered voters are confident they can affect what the federal government does about global warming.

Perceived collective efficacy regarding global warming – the belief that like-minded citizens can work together to influence what government and business leaders do about global warming – is an important motivator for individuals to take collective action.Bandura, A. (2000). Exercise of human agency through collective efficacy. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9, 75-78. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.00064 Thirty-eight percent of registered voters are at least “moderately confident” that people like them, working together, can affect what the federal government does about global warming (a decrease of 10 percentage points since we last asked this question in Spring 2024). Similarly, 36% are at least “moderately confident” that people like them, working together, can affect what corporations do about global warming (-10 percentage points since Spring 2024).

About half of liberal Democrats express collective efficacy regarding global warming, while conservative Republicans express the lowest collective efficacy, although that may in part be because they are less likely to support action on global warming overall.