Journal Name: Climatic Change

Title: The American Public’s Preference for Preparation for the Possible Effects of Global Warming: Impact of Communication Strategies

Journal Name: Climatic Change

Authors:

Bo MacInnis

Jon A. Krosnick

Adina Abeles

Meg Caldwell

Erin Prahler

Debbie Drake Dunne

Corresponding Author:

Jon A. Krosnick, Stanford University

E-mail:

Online Resource

1 Trends in Use of Terms Describing the Purpose of Preparation in Newspaper Stories

Separately for each year between 2000 and 2013, searches were conducted in April 2014 using Lexis Nexis to gauge the numbers of newspaper articles published containing the phrase “global warming” or “climate change” and containing each of the six target phrases. In Lexis Nexis, the “source” was set to “newspapers”, and full text search terms were the following:

(“climate change” or “global warming”) and “reduce risk”

(“climate change” or “global warming”) and “reduce vulnerability”

(“climate change” or “global warming”) and “increase resilience”

(“climate change” or “global warming”) and “increase preparedness”

(“climate change” or “global warming”) and “increase readiness”

(“climate change” or “global warming”) and “prevent maladaptation”

An additional search was conducted for each year to count the total number of newspaper articles containing phrase “global warming” or “climate change” and containing any of the six target phrases. The source was again set to “newspapers”, and full text search terms were the following:

(“climate change” or “global warming”) and (“reduce risk” or “reduce vulnerability” or “increase resilience” or “increase preparedness” or “increase readiness” or “prevent maladaptation”)

For each year, Figure S1 shows the number of newspaper articles published containing the phrase “global warming” or “climate change” and containing each of the six target phrases divided by the total number of newspaper articles published containing the phrase “global warming” or “climate change” and any of the six target phrases.

2 General Trust in Endorsers

General trust in endorsers of preparation can be gauged by national surveys of Americans conducted in the recent past. For example, according to the Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor Poll of the American public conducted between May 19 and 23, 2012, 37% of Americans trusted “scientists and academics” “a great deal”, in contrast to 22% for “clergy and other religious leaders”, 4% for “elected officials”, and 3% for “leaders of major corporations” (Allstate/National Journal 2012). Similarly, in the 2012 General Social Survey, 40% of Americans expressed “a great deal” of confidence in the “scientific community”, 20% said so about “organized religion”, 17% said so about “major companies”, 14% said so about the “Executive Branch of Federal Government”, and 7% said so about “Congress” (Smith and Son 2013). And in the Northeastern University Innovation in Higher Education Survey, conducted between October 13 and 18, 2012, 29% of respondents expressed “a great deal” of trust in information from “college and university professors”, as compared to 6% in information from “leaders of major corporations” and 3% for “elected public officials” (Northeastern University 2012).

3 Familiarity and Simplicity of Terms

According to Google searches conducted on September 13, 2013, “reduce risk” appeared on about 4 million web pages, compared to about 287,000 for “reduce vulnerability,” 164,000 for “increase resilience,” 25,000 for “increase readiness,” 19,000 for “increase preparedness,” and 1,000 for “prevent maladaptation.”

Among the phrases describing the purpose of preparation that we examined, all involved two words, but they varied in the numbers of letter and syllables. “Reduce risk” contains the fewest of each (3 syllables and 10 letters), compared to “reduce vulnerability” (8 syllables and 19 letters), “increase resilience” (5 syllables and 18 letters), “increase readiness” (5 syllables and 17 letters), “increase preparedness” (5 syllables and 20 letters), and “prevent maladaptation” (7 syllables and 20 letters). This, too, might lead us to expect “reduce risk” to have an advantage in inducing people to endorse preparation.

The same sort of logic can be applied to the other language choices we examined. For example, we explored whether people reacted differently to “prepare for” vs. “plan for” to describe preparation. According to Google searches done on August 19, 2013, “plan for” and “prepare for” appeared on about the same number of webpages (see Table S1), and they have the same numbers of words (2) and about the same number of syllables (2 vs. 3) and letters (7 vs. 10), so these phrases might be equally likely to induce positive evaluations.

We also applied this analytic approach to phrases describing not preparing: “adapt to,” “adjust to,” or “respond to.” They are identical in the number of words (2) and the number of syllables (3), and very similar in terms of the numbers of letters (7 vs. 8 vs. 9). However, as shown in Table S1, Google searches indicated that “respond to” appeared on considerably more webpages than did “adapt to” or “adjust to”. Therefore, “respond to” might be the most familiar of these phrases and might therefore be the most likely to dissuade people from endorsing preparation.

4 Merriam-Webster (Merriam-Webster 2014) Definitions of Words

Risk: 1. the possibility that something bad or unpleasant (such as an injury or a loss) will happen; 2. someone or something that may cause something bad or unpleasant to happen.

Vulnerable: 1. easily hurt or harmed physically, mentally, or emotionally; 2. open to attack, harm, or damage.

Resilience: 1. the ability to become strong, healthy, or successful again after something bad happens; 2. the ability of something to return to its original shape after it has been pulled, stretched, pressed, bent, etc.

Preparedness: 1. the fact of being ready for something; 2. the state of being prepared.

Ready: 1. prepared to do something; 2. properly prepared or finished and available for use; 3. almost about to do something.

Maladaptation: poor or inadequate adaptation

Respond: 1. to say or write something as an answer to a question or request; 2. to do something as a reaction to something that has happened or been done; 3. to have a particular reaction to something; 4. to have a good or desired reaction to something

Adapt: 1. to change your behavior so that it is easier to live in a particular place or situation; 2. to change (something) so that it functions better or is better suited for a purpose; 3. to change (a movie, book, play, etc.) so that it can be presented in another form

Adjust: 1. to change (something) in a minor way so that it works better; 2. to change the position of (something); 3. to change in order to work or do better in a new situation

Prepare: 1. to make (someone or something) ready for some activity, purpose, use, etc.; 2. to make yourself ready for something that you will be doing, something that you expect to happen, etc.; 3. to make or create (something) so that it is ready for use.

Plan: 1. to think about and arrange the parts or details of (something) before it happens or is made; 2. to intend or expect to do (something); 3. to expect something to happen.

5 Question Wordings and Codings of Measures

Sex: Respondents’ sex (male or female) was recorded by interviewers. Dummy variable Female was set to 1 if the respondent was female and 0 otherwise.

Age. Respondents were asked, “In what year were you born” and “Have you already had a birthday this year?” People who refused to report their year of birth were asked to select an age range from among the following categories: under 25, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64, 65-74, and 75 or older. Based on these questions, we constructed the following dummy variables. Dummy variable Age 18 to 24 was set to 1 if the respondent was between age 18 and 24 and 0 otherwise; dummy variable Age 25 to 34 which was set to 1 if the respondent was between age 25 and 34 and 0 otherwise; dummy variable Age 35 to 44 which was set to 1 if the respondent was between age 35 and 44 and 0 otherwise; dummy variable Age 45 to 54 which was set to 1 if the respondent was between age 45 and 54 and 0 otherwise; dummy variable Age 55 to 64 which was set to 1 if the respondent was between age 55 and 64 and 0 otherwise; dummy variable Age 65 or older was set to 1 if the respondent was age 65 or older and 0 otherwise; dummy variable Age missing was set to 1 if the respondent did not answer and 0 otherwise.

Race and ethnicity. Respondents were asked this ethnicity question, “Are you of Hispanic ethnicity?” Among respondents who answered “Yes” were asked the race question: “Are you White, Black, Asian, American Indian, or other?” Dummy variable Hispanic was set to 1 if the respondent answered “Yes” to the ethnicity question and 0 otherwise; dummy variable Not-Hispanic white was set to 1 if the respondent answered with “No” to the ethnicity question and “White” to the race question and 0 otherwise; dummy variable Not-Hispanic black was set to 1 if the respondent answered with “No” to the ethnicity question and answered with “Black” to the race question and 0 otherwise; dummy variable Not-Hispanic other race(s) was set to 1 if the respondent answered with “No” to the ethnicity question and answered with “Asian”, or “American Indian” or “Other” to the race question and 0 otherwise; dummy variable Race and ethnicity missing was set to 1 if the respondent did not answer the ethnicity question and/or did not answer the race question and 0 otherwise.

Education. Respondents were asked, “What is the last year of school you completed – Grade school or some high school, Completed high school, Some college but did not finish, Completed a two year college degree, Completed a four year college degree, or Completed a post-graduate degree such as Master’s or PhD?” Dummy variable Less than high school graduate was set to 1 if the respondent answered with “Completed Grade school or some high school” and 0 otherwise; dummy variable High school graduate was set to 1 if the respondent answered with “Completed high school” and 0 otherwise; dummy variable Some college was set to 1 if the respondent answered with “Some college but did not finish” or “Completed a two year college degree” and 0 otherwise; dummy variable College graduate was set to 1 if the respondent answered with “Completed a four year college degree” or “Completed a post-graduate degree such as Master’s or PhD” and 0 otherwise; dummy variable Education missing was set to 1 if the respondent did not answer and 0 otherwise.

Income. Respondents were asked, “Now, I am going to read a list of income ranges. When I get to the income range that best describes your household income from all sources in 2012, please stop me. Was your household income for 2012 under $25,000, $25,000 to less than $55,000, $55,000 to less than $75,000, $75,000 to less than $100,000, or $100,000 or more?” Dummy variables Under $25,000 was set to 1 if the respondent answered with “under $25,000” and 0 otherwise; dummy variable $25,000 to less than $55,000 was set to 1 if the respondent answered with “$25,000 to less than $55,000” and 0 otherwise; dummy variable $55,000 to less than $75,000 was set to 1 if the respondent answered with “$55,000 to less than $75,000” and 0 otherwise; dummy variable $75,000 to less than $100,000 was set to 1 if the respondent answered with “$75,000 to less than $100,000” and 0 otherwise; dummy variable “$100,000 or more” was set to 1 if the respondent answered with “$100,000 or more” and 0 otherwise. Dummy variable Income missing was set to 1 if the respondent did not answer and 0 otherwise.

Region. The firm that generated the sample of telephone numbers to dial (Survey Sampling International) provided the region in which each respondent’s residence was located based on the area code. We created dummy variables identifying these four regions: Northeast, Midwest, South, and West.

Political Party Identification. Respondents were asked, “Do you consider yourself a Democrat, a Republican, an Independent, or none of these?” Dummy variable Democrat was set to 1 if the respondent answered with “Democrat” and 0 otherwise; dummy variable Republican was set to 1 if the respondent answered with “Republican” and 0 otherwise; dummy variable Independent set to 1 if the respondent answered with “Independent” or “none of these” or didn’t answer and 0 otherwise.

6 Survey Methodology

Studies 1, 2, 3 and 4, were random digit dial (RDD) telephone surveys of representative samples of American adults. Phone numbers to be called were drawn from landline and cellular telephone number frames by Survey Sampling International. Landline telephone numbers were drawn with equal probabilities from active blocks (area code + exchange + two-digit block number) that contained one or more residential directory listings. The cell phone sample was generated through random sampling from 1000-blocks dedicated to cellular service according to the Telcordia database. The questionnaire was written in English and then translated into Spanish by one translator to permit administration in both languages. Interviews were administered in English and Spanish.

Study 1 was a survey of 1,004 U.S. adults conducted between January 3 and 6, 2013 (804 people via landline telephones, and 200 via cell phones) by Ipsos. The AAPOR Response Rate 3 was 4.2%. Study 2 was a survey of 1,000 U.S. adults interviewed between February 7 and 11, 2013 (800 respondents via landline telephones, and 200 via cell phones) by Ipsos, with an AAPOR Response Rate 3 of 1.7%. Study 3 was a survey of 1,003 U.S. adults conducted between March 7 and 11, 2013 (801 via landline telephones, and 202 via cell phones) by Ipsos. The AAPOR Response Rate 3 was 3.3%. Study 4 was a survey of 1,003 U.S. adults conducted between April 4 and 8, 2013 (800 via landline telephones, and 201 via cell phones) by Ipsos, with an AAPOR Response Rate 3 of 2.9%.