CARBON COMPETENCE.
Our manuscript, Widespread misestimates of greenhouse gas emissions suggest low carbon competence, was recently published in Nature Climate Change. This is the first manuscript from the Sustainability & Behavior (SAB) Lab at Columbia Business School, a multidisciplinary research group established in 2021 (co-chaired by Drs. Eric Johnson, Vicki Morwitz, Gita Johar, and Michael Morris, and managed by me). You can read the abstract below, and access the published article here.
As concern with climate change increases, people seek to behave and consume sustainably. This requires understanding which behaviours, firms and industries have the greatest impact on emissions. Here we ask if people are knowledgeable enough to make choices that align with growing sustainability intentions. Across five studies, we (1) demonstrate that accuracy of individuals’ emissions-related estimates is limited, (2) provide evidence that this misestimation is consistent with a cognitive process of attribute substitution and (3) identify conditions that do (and do not) moderate estimation accuracy. Our findings suggest that individuals’ efficacy as consumers, investors and citizens is currently hampered by their misjudgements of carbon impact. We advocate accessible and easily understandable information that highlights the causal impact of consumption decisions to facilitate climate action.
In the Press
We replicate these findings in a German context in another manuscript, Consumers Misestimate the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Associated with Sustainable Behaviors, Firms, and Industries, forthcoming in the Journal of Environmental Psychology. You can read the abstract below, and access the published article here.
Consumers are increasingly aware of the ecological impact of their consumption. Many intend to reduce their personal carbon footprint by adopting more environmentally friendly behaviors, like reducing meat consumption, avoiding short-distance flights, or switching to green energy providers. But do consumers know which behaviors contribute most to reducing emissions? Do they know which businesses and industries emit more greenhouse gases than others? We examine the accuracy of German consumers’ carbon emissions judgments, replicating and extending work suggesting widespread lack of carbon competence in the Unites States. Across six studies (N = 2028), we demonstrate that German consumers often make inaccurate judgments about the emissions associated with sustainable behaviors, firms, and industries. We investigate judgmental biases that can distort the emissions judgments. Corroborating earlier observations, our results suggest that emissions judgments can be biased by cognitive processes of attribute substitution. Decision makers can answer the complex question of carbon emissions by substituting easier attributes instead, like how many people within their social circle adopt a sustainable behavior, or how much they like a firm. We discuss how better understanding biases in carbon emissions judgments can contribute to improving consumer carbon competence.
EXPOSING OMITTED MODERATORS.
Artistic interpretation of the paper, painted by Rotterdam-based artist Philipp Schwalb (husband of friend/coauthor, Antonia Krefeld-Schwalb).
Exposing omitted moderators: Explaining why effect sizes differ in the social sciences, authored by Antonia Krefeld-Schwalb, myself, and Eric Johnson, was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (of the United States of America). You can read the abstract below, and access the published article here.
Policymakers increasingly rely on behavioral science in response to global challenges, such as climate change or global health crises. But applications of behavioral science face an important problem: Interventions often exert substantially different effects across contexts and individuals. We examine this heterogeneity for different paradigms that underlie many behavioral interventions. We study the paradigms in a series of five pre-registered studies across one in-person and 10 online panels, with over 11,000 respondents in total. We find substantial heterogeneity across settings and paradigms, apply techniques for modeling the heterogeneity, and introduce a framework that measures typically omitted moderators. The framework’s factors (Fluid Intelligence, Attentiveness, Crystallized Intelligence, and Experience) affect the effectiveness of many text-based interventions, producing different observed effect sizes and explaining variations across samples. Moderators are associated with effect sizes through two paths, with the intensity of the manipulation and with the effect of the manipulation directly. Our results motivate observing these moderators and provide a theoretical and empirical framework for understanding and predicting varying effect sizes in the social sciences.
In the Press
THE LOCAL WARMING EFFECT.
Local warming is real: A meta-analysis of the effect of recent temperature on climate change beliefs, by myself, Ye Li, and Eric Johnson, was published in 2021 in the journal Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences. You can read the abstract below, and access the published article here.
Climate change is a complex phenomenon that the public learns about both abstractly through media and education, and concretely through personal experiences. While public beliefs about global warming may be controversial in some circles, an emerging body of research on the ‘local warming’ effect suggests that people’s judgments of climate change or global warming are impacted by recent, local temperatures. A meta-analysis including 31 observations across 82 952 participants derived from 17 papers published since 2006 found a small but significant effect overall: a 1°C increase in temperature increases worry about climate change by 1.2%. Moderation analysis found larger effects for temperatures over longer time frames and smaller effects for behaviors versus beliefs. We also review conceptually related effects due to other extreme weather events, as well as effects on behaviors related to climate change beliefs.