Resource Type: Field Research

American’s external political efficacy – the belief that one can influence government decisions – has been on the decline over the last several decades. Greater involvement in civic associations may help to reverse this. Analyzing a panel dataset of several hundred environmental association members, this study found that as members got to know their association’s chapter leaders, external efficacy increased.

Consider the range of motivations that bring people to climate protests when designing events and outreach. Interviews with 64 attendees at the September, 2019 climate strikes in Europe and North America revealed a great deal of variation in their knowledge levels, emotions and motivations. A surprising number were not very knowledgeable about climate change, only half had been involved in previous climate protests before, and a substantial minority were motivated by a general sense of solidarity and desire to be part of a protest movement, and not necessarily specific concern about climate. Among a diversity of emotions regarding climate change, fear and hope were the most common. The authors therefore developed a typology of climate protestors: Frontline, Responsible, Latent, Disengaged, Opportunistic, Parallel, and Sceptical.
 

From June 2018-May 2019, PennEnvironment conducted a test on how personal phone contact (when layered on top of email and SMS contact) affects volunteer recruitment rates with the goal of maximizing staff time efficiency. In particular, they were interested in finding their organization’s break-even point in which their traditional model of personal phone contacts (which is effective, though time-consuming) is matched by digital-only contact (which yields participation, though at lower rates). With a subject pool of 37794 individuals drawn from inactive past supporters and newly recruited volunteers, which were then randomly selected into one of the two experimental groups, PennEnvironment found that the base rate for volunteer sign-ups from electronic contact was 0.002 shifts per contact sent. Layering in phone contact increased this rate to 0.3 additional shifts per call.

Negative framing consistently outperformed positive framing in email and on Facebook in motivating supporters to take action as part of a campaign around San Diego’s utility agreement.

The Movement Cooperative and Deliver Strategies tested a variety of different mailer types – varying the presence of official-sounding language, emotional appears, and issue linkages – to evaluate impact on vote-by-mail (VBM) recruitment. Using an online panel matched to national demographics, they found that mailers increased intent to vote by 2.5 percentage points and intent to vote by mail by 7.5pp compared to their control condition of a placebo. More specifically, mailers with official-sounding language performed the best on intent to vote while emotional appeals decreased voter enthusiasm while increasing social trust. Takeaways from this study are that VBM mailers, regardless of frame, are effective in increasing intent to vote and intent to vote by mail and that official-sounding language works best, which is line with other non-VBM GOTV research that shows that straightforward approaches are best when it comes to GOTV.

A national survey conducted in late August found that:

The coronavirus pandemic has created the urgency to act in a way that climate change hasn’t. 
Despite the fact that voters are less concerned about climate, they still want robust clean energy investments in economic stimulus, seeing that as a great way to create jobs and better than investing in fossil fuels.
Because the urgency to act is already high and voters strongly and broadly support clean energy stimulus, we can still win.
Communications should focus on the need to recover economically from the coronavirus pandemic and the ways clean energy investments can create jobs and growth.
Environmental justice messages should be a part of this: They connect powerfully with communities of color, and there is no apparent backlash effect with white audiences.

The Climate Advocacy Lab and The All We Can Save Project came together to review the latest research and field testing about women’s engagement on climate change, before turning to excpetional female climate leaders – and contributing essayist for the forthcoming anthology, All We Can Save (AWCS) – about the powerful impacts of feminine & feminist climate leadership.