Yale Program on Climate Change Communication

4. Personal and Social Engagement with Global Warming

4.1. About one in five video gamers have seen or heard content related to global warming as part of gaming in the last 12 months.

About one in five video gamers (22%) have seen or heard content related to global warming as part of gaming in the last 12 months. This includes video gamers who say global warming was a topic in a game they have played (16%) or a topic in a video gaming stream they have watched (16%).

Specifically, many video gamers said they had seen or heard content about the impacts of global warming (13%), causes of global warming (11%), or solutions to global warming (11%). A few (5%) said they saw or heard content raising doubts about the reality of, causes of, or solutions to global warming, or that they did not remember (1%) what kind of content related to global warming they saw.

Additionally, about one in eight video gamers (13%) say they took actions based on the content that they learned about global warming in a game or gaming stream.

4.2. Most video gamers “rarely” or “never” discuss global warming with family and friends.

A majority of video gamers (55%) say they either “rarely” or “never” discuss global warming with family and friends, while 45% say they discuss global warming either “occasionally” or “often.”

4.3. About half of video gamers 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 video gamers (51%) say they hear about global warming in the media once a month or more often, while about three in ten (31%) say they hear about global warming in the media several times a year or less often, and nine percent say they never hear about global warming in the media.

About one in three video gamers (34%) say they hear people they know talk about global warming once a month or more often. In contrast, more than half say they either hear people they know talk about it several times a year or less often (37%) or never hear people they know talk about global warming (20%).

4.4. About three in four video gamers say the issue of global warming is personally important.

About three in four video gamers (74%) say the issue of global warming is either “extremely” (17%), “very” (24%), or “somewhat” (33%) important to them personally. About one in four (26%) say global warming is either “not too” (15%) or “not at all” (11%) personally important.

4.5. Most video gamers say they feel a personal sense of responsibility to help reduce global warming.

Most video gamers (63%) say they feel a personal sense of responsibility to help reduce global warming. By contrast, only 37% say they do not feel a personal sense of responsibility to help reduce global warming.

4.6. Most video gamers 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 (e.g., the belief that family and friends expect you to behave in a given way) and descriptive norms (e.g., the belief that family and friends are themselves behaving in that way).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.1467-9280.2007.01917.x

Most video gamers (61%) perceive an injunctive norm, saying it is either “extremely” (14%), “very” (20%), or “moderately” important (27%) to their family and friends that they take action to reduce global warming. Most video gamers (53%) also perceive a descriptive norm, saying their family and friends make either “a great deal of effort” (11%), “a lot of effort” (16%), or “a moderate amount of effort” (26%) to reduce global warming.