Conferences

According to Kearney (1994 cited in Rebetez 1996) climate change cannot be perceived directly by individuals because of the temporal scales associated with it. In addition, human perception of climate is strongly influenced by expectations, which may have little relationship to the true nature of climate as provided by the instrumental record (Rebetez 1996). Moreover, responses to climate change are divers and thus difficult to focus on certain behaviors to mitigate. Altogether climate change is a rather complex issue and needs a comprehensive analysis. Some recent studies give evidence that public perception of climate change may also be affected by different cultures. For instance, US-Americans have a moderate perception of climate change as a risk (Leiserowitz 2006) while British people are rather concerned about the same issue (Poortinga, Pidgeon, Lorenzoni 2006). In contrast, Semenza et al. (2008) found out that almost all respondents (USA) have heard about climate change or global warming, are rather concerned (women more than men) and some 50% reported behavior changes like decreased energy usage at home, reduced gasoline consumption, increased recycling and some other behaviors.

Therefore the objectives of this study are a) to assess the perceptions of Swiss people regarding climate change and influencing factors towards mitigation behavior; b) to identify and quantify the influencing factors of mitigation behavior within a behavioral model; c) to test the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen 1991) within the climate change context and extend the theory with additional variables.

To achieve these goals an online survey among all university members (students and staff of ETH, about 19000 people) is conducted in November 2008. The response rate is about 18% (3514 respondents). Data is analyzed within a Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach to model the influencing factors of mitigation behavior (e.g. public transport, recycling and heating).

The application of SEM requires a well-defined theoretical framework, as it takes a confirmatory approach to the analysis of a given structural theory. The Theory of Planned Behavior (ToPB), developed by Ajzen (1985), is taken as the theoretical basis. It encompasses three theoretical constructs, which influence the intention to perform a given behavior, viz. the attitude towards behavior, the subjective norm, and the perceived behavioral control. The more favorable the attitude toward a given behavior and the subjective norm, and the greater the perceived behavioral control, the stronger should be the person’s intention to perform the behavior in question. The survey contained socio-demographic variables as well as indicator variables since all theoretical constructs need to be operationalized through indicators. All indicators are graded on a five-point scale.

First results show that Attitudes have the biggest effect (.48) on Intentions followed by Subjective Norms (.22); these effects are significant at the .1% significance level. In contrast, Perceived Behavioral Control has no effect. The explained variance in Intentions is 36%. The commonly used fit indices RMSEA (.07) and NFI (.95) indicate a good fit of the model.

Future work will consider risk perceptions and world views within the SEM model.

References:

Ajzen, I. (1985, Reprinted): Attitudes, personality, and behavior. Milton Keynes : Open University

Leiserowitz, T. (2006): Climate Change Risk Perceptions and Policy Preferences: The Role of Affect, Imagery and Values. Climatic Change 77: 45-72.

Rebetez, M. (1996): Public Expectation as an Element of Human Perception of Climate Change. Climatic Change 32: 495-509

Semenza, J.C., Hall, D.E., Wilson, D.J., Bontempo, B.D., Sailor, D.J. George, L.A. (2008): Public Perception of Climate Change Voluntary Mitigation and Barriers to Behavior Change. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 35(5): 479-487.

Poortinga, W., Pidgeon, N.F., Lorenzoni, I. (2006): Public Perceptions of Nuclear Power, Climate Change and Energy Options in Britain. Summary Findings of a Survey Conducted during October and November 2005. Technical Report (Understanding Risk Working Paper 06-02), Norwich: Centre for Environmental Risk.