4.3.1 Concerns about ability to discuss the topic

Lack of willingness to have a conversation can be a result of assumptions about one’s audience leading to insecurity about one’s ability to have an effective conversation. First, many falsely conclude that others are not concerned about the topic (Leviston, Walker, & Morwinski, 2012), likely because they attribute others’ silence to lack of interest in the topic. In reality, this silence may be based on others’ reactions to situational cues that promote the silence (Gawronski, 2004; Geiger, Swim, 2016). Second, misperceptions about one’s audience can lead to self-presentation concerns. For example, many US college students are concerned about being perceived as incompetent if they were to bring up the topic, particularly when they believe that potential discussion partners hold different opinions from their own (Geiger, Swim, 2016). We suggest that these concerns about not being able to sound competent in a climate change discussion likely prevail across much of the general public, considering that much of the public poorly understands the basic mechanisms of climate change and is unable to connect the causes of climate change to the effects (Capstick et al., 2015; Swim et al. 2017; Volmert et al., 2013). In addition to these general concerns, people may also hold situation-specific concerns about discussing climate change. For example, trained educators at zoos and aquariums report concerns about boring others while communicating climate change (Swim & Fraser, 2014).

Together, beliefs about others’ opinions and self-presentation concerns propagate a downward spiral of silence on the topic: individuals refrain from discussing climate change because they believe others are not interested, but individuals believe others are not interested because they do not hear others discussing climate change (Geiger, Swim, 2016; Noelle-Neumann, 1993). If an intervention is to be successful at ending the spiral of silence, it should provide accurate information about a particular audience’s beliefs about climate change (Geiger & Swim, 2016) and improve self-assessed competency to talk about that topic (e.g., Geiger, Swim, & Fraser, 2017).

4.3.2 Emotional barriers

Lack of concern about climate change cannot sufficiently explain the general dearth of conversations. True, greater concern is associated with talking more about climate change (Leiserowitz et al., 2015; Swim & Geiger, 2017). However, even among the majority of Americans who express some degree of concern about climate change, less than half regularly discuss the topic (Leiserowitz et al., 2015; Swim, Geiger, 2017). Ironically, people may avoid talking about climate change not because they lack concern but because the perceived severity of the threat of climate change can be existentially and emotionally threatening (Fraser et al, 2013; Norgaard, 2011). According to interviews Norgaard (2011) conducted in her ethnographic research, the consequences of climate change are sufficiently aversive that Norwegians report preferring to talk about other topics, particularly issues they perceive they can influence. Thus, emotional experiences and intensity of these experiences can have a relevant effect on responses to climate change messages.

4.3.3 Conversation content

Individuals’ lack of willingness to engage in conversations about climate change can be driven in part by insufficient knowledge to engage in a meaningful discussion. Even if scientifically accurate, default frames of the topic may be limited in scope, can be off-putting, or lead to unproductive outcomes. For example, one way to talk about oceans is that they are vast but this description can promote the appraisal that nature is tolerant of human impacts. Thus, framing the oceans as vast can discourage support for policies designed to address human-caused environmental degradation (cf. Steg & Sievers, 2000). As another example, a review of op-eds that referenced topics related to climate change published from 2009 to 2011 in the New York, Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today indicated that prototypically liberal moral frames of harm vs. care and equality of outcomes dominated comments relative to prototypically conservative moral frames of respect for authority, ingroup loyalty, and purity (Feinberg & Willer, 2013). Framing the issue in in terms of harm vs. care may create reactance or discourage interest among conservatives. These findings suggest the importance of evaluating the prevalence and effectiveness of frames that people commonly use to think about and discuss climate change in order to develop an intervention that can promote dialogue.

The content of conversations can also perpetuate misinformation. Conversations in which communicators ignore (or are not aware of) the current state of the science or focus on false scientific debates about whether human-caused climate change exists may propagate misinformation and demotivate action (Oreskes, Conway, 2011; Regan, 2007). Consumers of information may be misled by sources of information that either deliberately or inadvertently pass along misinformation. For example, when readers were told that news articles were selected by audiences, the articles were viewed more favorably than when the articles were described as selected by news editors, who traditionally have been gatekeepers of the quality of information (Sundar & Nass, 2001). This suggests that social validation of information can direct attention to socially appraised sources of information rather than sources of information appraised by an expert. If a dyad or group with strongly held yet factually incorrect beliefs about a topic engages in a discussion, an in-group discussion can reinforce their beliefs or lead them to believe even more extreme misinformation because they perceive their beliefs to be typical of the entire population rather than their smaller in-group. This phenomenon can enhance the beliefs that participants hold prior to their group discussion, a phenomenon known as group polarization (Isenberg, 1986). To prevent misleading polarization, conversations need to be infused with accurate content.

4.4.1 Frame messages to engage audiences

Overarching frames--the context in which messages are situated—introduce topics and influence responses to messages (e.g., Corner, Markowitz, & Pidgeon, 2014; Lakoff, 2010). Effective frames can engage listeners, and promote or motivate action. In contrast, disengagement or even resistance may be met when frames do not align with an audience’s values and moral principles. Many communicators are in search of effective frames that reach across audiences, are endorsed by most members of the public, or match the values of a particular target audience.

Empirical research can help in the selection of such frames. Examples of effective frames are those that encourage the vast majority of people to think compassionately and empathically about animals and humans, and thinking about one’s impact on the future generations (Pfattheicher, Sassenrath, & Schindler, 2016; Swim & Bloodhart, 2014; Zaval, Markowitz, & Weber, 2015). Research also points to matching frames with audience views of climate change (Maibach, Leiserowitz, Roser-Renouf, & Mertz, 2011). For example, frames that emphasize harmful impacts that will be a consequence of climate change on people are less effective at reaching conservative audiences than messages that emphasize technological solutions that can address the problem, reinforce conservative moral principles such as purity in the form of protecting air and water quality, or build on in-group loyalty in the form of patriotism (Feinberg & Willer, 2013; Wolsko, Ariceaga, & Seiden, 2016).

4.4.2 Provide an even toned conversation

The tone of conversation can determine the success of interpersonal exchanges (Kasperson et al., 1988; Renn, 2011). Expressing a rigid, dogmatic belief that one’s beliefs are superior to others’ beliefs may increase frustration with conversations and discourage future conversations without increasing the effectiveness of persuading the other (Maki, Raimi, 2017; Regan, 2007). In contrast, those who acknowledge the legitimacy of the other’s viewpoint and focus on a give-and-take dialogue create more positive experiences that are also more influential (Maki, Raimi, 2017; Regan, 2007). Such a dialogue could still address misinformation by providing scientifically grounded information but couch these corrections within active listening and consideration of what others are thinking and feeling. Listening carefully to what a misinformed person is saying could not only help that person be more receptive but also help identify common logical fallacies. In these instances, rather than countering misinformation with accurate information, misinformation is likely best countered by identifying logical fallacies in the misinformation, such as cherry-picking data (Cook & Lewandowsky, 2011). Cook and Lewandowsky also argue that effective commuicators follow the identification of a fallacy by circling back to core messages grounded in science in order to mentally replace the misinformation with succinctly articulated accurate information. That is to say, a fallacy requires substitution in conversation with a simplified scientifically accurate replacement.

4.4.3 Create core science messages

Climate change education does not need to be complicated. Brief statements that provide information about how climate change works have been shown to change attitudes about the topic (Ranney & Clark, 2016). An ideal conversation will contribute to improved climate literacy by moving the general mental models of climate change to align with expert climate scientists’ understanding of the phenomenon. This includes the goals of encouraging the public to understand causes and evidence of climate change, the consequences of climate change, and the mechanisms that connect the causes with evidence of climate change and its consequences (Volmert, 2014). Attending to causal processes could encourage people to think more in terms of systems, such as the carbon cycle, rather than disconnected attributes such as carbon dioxide or isolated consequences such as melting icebergs. Systems thinking (i.e. thinking holistically about complex systems rather than seeing all parts as disconnected from one another) can encourage people to see people, including themselves, as operating within the climate system. By situating a person within the system, they can better perceive themselves as a causal agent, someone who will experience predicted impacts, and, as part of a group, have the power to address the causes and impacts. Encouraging systems thinking can be helpful in climate change messaging because it is related to both risk perception and policy support (Lezak & Thibodeau, 2016).

In order to address both actual knowledge and competency related self-presentation concerns, the content in the core message should be easily understood. Explanatory metaphors and analogies can provide a means of conveying key climate change learning objectives (cf. Sopory & Dillard, 2002). Consistent with aligning expert and public understanding of climate change, an explanatory metaphor provides “a bridge between expert and public (that is, non-scientist) understandings” (p. 416) that highlights salient features of a complex or abstract concept and maps them onto more concrete and familiar objects, events, or processes (Kendall-Taylor & Haydon, 2016). Further, effective analogies should “(1) be factual and not misleading, (2) use a familiar domain to explain the unfamiliar, (3) be novel enough to capture interest, and (4) allow for correct extrapolations based on understanding of the known domain.” (p. 3; Raimi, Stern, & Maki, 2017). Ideally, these messages would be tested for one’s audience in order to assure that specific learning objectives are achieved (e.g., Raimi et al., 2017). An example of a tested effective metaphor for encouraging systems thinking is describing the “earth as our home” (Thibodeau, Frantz, & Berretta, 2017).

In order to encourage the social construction of climate change, effective messages would facilitate easy repetition of the message to others. Metaphors and analogies may help achieve this if they make the topic vivid and improve memory for the information (cf. Blondé & Girandola, 2016). As noted above, messages would ideally be tested to ensure that they are easy to recall and repeat.

The success of central climate change messages would be revealed in improved public understanding of the mechanisms that connect causes of climate change to evidence of climate change and understanding of how to mitigate risk from that change. Greater understanding of climate change can overcome self-presentation concerns about incompetence that prevent people from talking about climate change, particularly with audiences that they anticipate will disagree with their position on the topic (Geiger et al. 2017; Geiger, Swim, 2016). Further, if metaphors are selected that teach about climate change and have demonstrably been repeated accurately to others, there is a higher likelihood that people will repeat those core messages in other conversations.

4.4.4 Increase hope with doable solutions

Climate change messages were described earlier in this chapter as sometimes so emotionally disturbing that people prefer to not talk about it. In this sense, “catastrophizing” climate change has been described as counter-productive because the emotions produced from the message can lead to disengagement and denial (Foust & O’Shannon Murphy, 2009; O’Neill, Nicholson-Cole, 2009). As a result, some communicators may choose to avoid using disturbing images of climate change impacts as a way to avoid controversy. However, understanding changes in the climate that can be attributed to human development is central to explaining why the issue is of such proximate concern. Describing human activity that has disrupted the carbon cycle can help a listener understand why life on the planet is at more risk now than it has been in the past centuries, and that this risk is projected to increase over the next century (see IPCC, 2013 for details on projected climate risks).

Rather than avoiding discussion of impacts, research on fear appeals has demonstrated that messages can be improved if the impacts are paired with solutions that help people cope with the problem (Tannenbaum et al., 2015). For example, when the source of most carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is described as being from fossil fuels used to create electricity and transportation, it becomes clearer that people can engage in solutions to reduce the use of fossil fuels. Proposed climate communications solutions are more likely to lead to action when they are perceived as “doable”, that is, when audience member perceive that they have the capacity to take action personally (known as self-efficacy) and the knowledge that if they take these actions, there result will be a desired outcome (known as response efficacy; Geiger et al. 2017; Norgaard, 2011). The importance of actions that make a difference is reflected in the New York Times journalist and Pulitzer prize winner Thomas Friedman’s 2008 encouragement to “change your leaders not your light bulb” (Starosta, 2008). While energy-efficiency behaviors such as replacing inefficient lightbulbs can play an important part in reducing carbon emissions, the statement highlights that civic behavior has a higher likelihood of achieving the large-scale impacts necessary to counter the risks that will flow from climate change than do small-scale personal actions. People may not believe that they have the power to replace disliked political leaders, but wider public engagement with the challenge can also convince policy makers to commit more resources to the solution.

These findings demonstrate that effective climate messaging is a combination of literacy expansion and personal actions for learners that meet the “sweet spot.” Inspiring climate communications combine actions that are small enough that individuals can do them, yet large enough to contribute to systemic difference. Examples include civic and community responses such as installing community solar panels, support for government development of public transportation, participating in coordinated neighborhood activities to reduce collective energy use, and talking about climate change as a problem that groups and organizations can help to solve through implementing these activities.

Evidence that messages have achieved their goals include the sense that the listener has the capacity to make a change in their own sphere of influence and increased hope about people’s ability to address climate change (Chadwick, 2015). Hope can be a particularly relevant emotion to target because hope is an emotion associated with agency and expansive thinking, which can galvanize action (Cavanaugh, Cutright, Luce, & Bettman, 2011; Ojala, 2012; Snyder, 2002). Thus, messages that instill hope in audiences can motivate commitment to engaging in actions, potentially those most similar to those recommended in messages, such as community level actions.

4.5.1 Developing a core message

NNOCCI began when the New England Aquarium convened an interdisciplinary group of researchers and practitioners to take on the challenge of changing the conversation on climate change in their public programs and grew to include a larger range of communication and education experts. Education leaders at the New England Aquarium, Monterey Bay Aquarium, National Aquarium and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums wanted to raise awareness among visitors to informal science learning centers of climate change impacts with specific attention to the threats to marine life, but noted that staff needed greater capacity to guide such interactions with confidence. To bolster the communications strategy, this group of educators and advisors engaged climate change scientists, aquarium professionals, and an interdisciplinary group of communication researchers from FrameWorks Institute--a nonprofit think tank that conducts social science research to promote effective communications on social and scientific issues across a variety of topics. As the communications research and training partner for NNOCCI, FrameWorks Institute provided a theory of communication, empirically tested communications strategies and tools, and a curriculum for teaching professionals how to incorporate framing insights into their communications opportunities. NNOCCI then drew together a much larger team of advisors, social scientists and education researchers to build a robust training program to create a community of practice among interpreters from zoos, aquariums, nature centers, parks, and science centers located across the US.

4.5.2 Developing metaphors

Applied communications researchers at the FrameWorks Institute have, over time, found that metaphors can play an influential role in effectiveness of messages by giving people robust, accessible ways to think and talk about social and political issues. Metaphors offer a way for science communicators to describe key concepts succinctly and concisely yet maintain fidelity to the science. For instance, in a decade-long partnership with researchers associated with the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, FrameWorks researchers generated and tested a number of metaphors for various scientific phenomena that have since found their way into news media, legislation, and everyday discourse (Shonkoff & Bales, 2011). For the present intervention, FrameWorks applied their experience and skills to developing climate change metaphors.

We present detailed information about FrameWorks design and testing used to translate science into metaphors in order to illustrate how social science information and methods were used in developing the training materials. FrameWorks deployed an iterative design process involving multiple cycles of testing, analysis, and refinement to select metaphors consistent and measurable results on public understanding of climate change (Volmert, 2014). The steps in this metaphor generation process were as follows.

4.5.3 Reflection on the climate heart metaphor

The results of this research into the use of the Climate’s Heart metaphor indicate that this simple metaphor:

4.5.4 Additional recommendations

Using the same methodology, other metaphors were developed for different aspects of the climate system (Bales et al., 2015; Volmert, 2014). These additional metaphors included the following: 1) differentiating between natural and human caused contribution of carbon dioxide as “regular” versus “rampant” levels of carbon dioxide, 2) a “heat trapping blanket” that gets thicker and thicker as a result of the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causing the planet to get warmer and warmer, and 3) “osteoporosis of the sea” which is a result of carbon dioxide combining with water to create carbonic acid that then eats away at sea creatures with calcium exteriors.

The same process was also used to select two ways to frame messages (Simon, Volmert, Bunten, & Kendall-Taylor, 2014). One recommended frame emphasized “protection” where people and places that we depend upon are protected thereby ensuring people’s safety, risk reduction, and preserving habitats. This framing is reminiscent of research on loss aversion comparing people’s preferences to avoid losses rather than achieve equivalent gains (Tversky & Kahneman, 1981). It also connects to research on moral principles of caring for others (Wolsko et al., 2016) and environmental concerns about the impact of environmental problems on people and the planet (Schultz, 2001). The second recommended frame focused on “responsible management” where people engage in step-by-step approaches to responsibly take care of environmental resources for long term planning and future generations. This frame, therefore, connects to a business approach to caring for the environment (Swim, Vescio, Dahl, & Zawadzki, 2017) and to legacy motives where people are asked to consider the impact of their current actions on future generations (Zaval et al., 2015). A frame that focused on scientific authorities was also tested. This framing argued for respecting scientific consensus, relying on scientists’ findings and recommended solutions and supporting scientific research. Outcome measures suggested that “Scientific Authority” frame was not as effective as the other two frames so it was not recommended for further development.

4.6.1 Social network data

The third set of data was collected from members of educators’ social networks. These data tested the social diffusion of the training beyond the visitor groups entailed by the job. We considered both formal networks (i.e., connections with coworkers in the same community of practice) and informal networks (i.e. connections with friends and family). We were interested in the formal networks because connections with co-workers could extend the reach of the training program. We were interested in informal networks because it could demonstrate that the training has a depth of personal impact and breadth of social impact that goes beyond the educator’s job and place of employment.

Three-hundred seventy-seven friends, family, and colleagues who were connected to one of 116 educators completed a survey six months after the educator had completed the NNOCCI training program. Relative to the general public (but similar to the demographics of those who visit informal science learning centers, Geiger et al., 2017), women, whites, and political liberals were all overrepresented in our sample. See Appendix for more information about the sample.

In the survey, participants indicated recent changes in their conversations about climate change with the educator. More specifically, the survey assessed educators’ communications about climate change—the frequency they talked about climate change over the previous six months, representing the time interval since they completed the training program; whether they used techniques recommended in the training; and their influence on network members’ understanding of climate change, emotional responses and behaviors. After indicating the degree of influence the educator had on them, respondents indicated whether this influence reflected a change from before the educators’ training. The measure of understanding included self-assessment of respondents’ understanding of climate science, knowledge about sources of information about climate change (suggesting that they could successfully seek additional information about climate change), knowing ways that communities could address climate change, and knowing ways to discuss climate change. Emotional reactions included feeling hopeful, helpless, bored, and anxious. The latter three were considered undesirable states for the purposes of the present research. See Appendix A for more information about measures.

Understanding and hope were of interest for three reasons. First, improved understanding and hope suggest that the training was addressing competency and emotional barriers to climate conversations, respectively. Second, if the effect of the training on educators accounted for the influence of educators on network members, then both the frequency and the use of recommended techniques should be associated with educators’ influence on their network members’ understanding of climate change and hope. Associations with understanding would suggest that the core messages were conveying the science as intended. Associations with hope would suggest that recommended solutions overcame emotional barriers to communication and action. Third, understanding and hope could motivate behavior. As noted above, our assessment of understanding included both understanding the science and understanding knowledge about actions. Together, these two components of understanding could motivate people to take such actions. If hope does suggest that solutions were more “doable” then people may be more persuaded to take actions.

With regard to network members observations of educators, on average, network members indicated that educators talked “occasionally” about climate change and “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that the educators used strategic framing techniques (see see weighted means in Table 4.1). Additionally, weighted percents indicate that over half reported that this was an increase over the previous six months which reflected the time between educators having completed the training and network members completing the survey. With regard to impact, weighted means also indicated that educators influenced network members’ understanding of climate, hope about their ability to work with others to address climate change, and engagement in pro-environmental behaviors. Over half indicated an increase in influence in understanding and half indicated an increase in hope over the previous six months. A third indicated an increase in influence in pro-environmental behaviors. The lower percent may reflect greater difficulty in changing behaviors or more time needed to make such changes. In contrast, network members reported that the educators did not influence their negative feelings related to climate change (helpless anxious, and disengaged) and only about 10% indicated that there was a change in educators influence on negative emotions. Changes over time in educator behavior and influence on network members did not significantly differ between educators’ co-workers vs. friends and family, ps > .05.

The impact of educator behavior on understanding and hope and the subsequent impact of understanding and hope on behaviors result in the model illustrated in Figure 4.2. We conducted multilevel logistic regressions to test whether 1) changes in the frequency and way that the educators talked about climate change (as perceived by the network members) were related to network members’ reports of changes in educators’ influence on their understanding of climate change and hope about their ability to address climate change, and 2) these changes in understanding and hope were subsequently associated with changes in network members’ reports that educators were influencing pro-environmental behaviors. We did not include negative emotions in the model because few indicated that changes in conversations with network members had decreased these emotions and most indicated no changes in these emotions.

As shown in Fig. 4.2, an increase in educators’ frequency of talking about climate change and use of strategic framing were positively associated with increase of educators’ influence on network members’ understanding of climate change and hope, ps < .001. Both changes in understanding of climate change and hope were subsequently positively associated with increased influence of educators on network members’ pro-environmental behaviors, ps < .001. We used the procedures outlined in MacKinnon and Dwyer (1993) on conducting mediation analyses with dichotomous outcome variables to estimate indirect effects. Sobel tests revealed that all indirect effects were significantly greater than 0 (ps <.001), suggesting that relations between changes in the manner that educators discussed climate change and increased behavior among respondents could be explained by both increased understanding and hope among respondents. Additional analyses indicated that none of the paths in Fig. 4.2 differed between a) coworkers and b) friends/family.

In summary, the results of this rather large study revealed that those who participated in the NNOCCI training program were able to inspire those with whom they regularly interacted (i.e., those in their professional and personal social networks) into greater climate change engagement through educators’ frequency and content of conversations about the topic. Over half of the contacts reported that educators had increased these activities since the training. The impact of educator behavior on behavioral engagement is attributable to the influence of educators on their network members’ understanding of climate change and hope. When combined with results from data collected from educators and visitors, data from social network members suggest that the NNOCCI training program led to an overall increase in climate change engagement among a wide range of individuals who have contact with the educators. Since this increase in climate change engagement included increased discussion of climate change (Geiger et al., 2017), this training could result in ripple effects, affecting not only those who directly interact with training alumni but also those two or more degrees socially removed from those participating in the training program.

There are limitations in our analyses. First, the research design led to descriptive and correlational analyses. Given the lack of a control group, we cannot assert causality with regard to our process model shown in Fig. 4.2. Our descriptive findings could also have been skewed by respondents wishing to portray educators in a positive light and response bias: those who viewed the educator less favorably could have been less likely to respond to our invitation to complete the survey. We acknowledge these limitations but also note the convergence between these results and independent research assessing improvements in the educators’ communication as viewed by visitors (Geiger et al., 2017), which suggests that these limitations may be minor and not impact the overall findings. The fact that similar conclusions can be drawn from analyses using diverse methodologies and sampling methods supports the validity of both sets of findings.