TY - JOUR
T1 - Children can foster climate change concern among their parents
AU - Lawson, Danielle F.
AU - Stevenson, Kathryn T.
AU - Peterson, M. Nils
AU - Carrier, Sarah J.
AU - L. Strnad, Renee
AU - Seekamp, Erin
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge North Carolina Sea Grant supported by the NOAA office of Sea Grant, United States Department of Commerce, under grant No. 2016-R/16-ELWD-1, for funding for this research. The authors also acknowledge The Department of Interior Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center for funding for this research through a graduate fellowship awarded to D.F.L. Finally, the authors acknowledge J. Hartley for creating Supplementary Fig. 1.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
PY - 2019/6/1
Y1 - 2019/6/1
N2 - The collective action that is required to mitigate and adapt to climate change is extremely difficult to achieve, largely due to socio-ideological biases that perpetuate polarization over climate change1,2. Because climate change perceptions in children seem less susceptible to the influence of worldview or political context3, it may be possible for them to inspire adults towards higher levels of climate concern, and in turn, collective action4. Child-to-parent intergenerational learning—that is, the transfer of knowledge, attitudes or behaviours from children to parents5—may be a promising pathway to overcoming socio-ideological barriers to climate concern5. Here we present an experimental evaluation of an educational intervention designed to build climate change concern among parents indirectly through their middle school-aged children in North Carolina, USA. Parents of children in the treatment group expressed higher levels of climate change concern than parents in the control group. The effects were strongest among male parents and conservative parents, who, consistent with previous research1, displayed the lowest levels of climate concern before the intervention. Daughters appeared to be especially effective in influencing parents. Our results suggest that intergenerational learning may overcome barriers to building climate concern.
AB - The collective action that is required to mitigate and adapt to climate change is extremely difficult to achieve, largely due to socio-ideological biases that perpetuate polarization over climate change1,2. Because climate change perceptions in children seem less susceptible to the influence of worldview or political context3, it may be possible for them to inspire adults towards higher levels of climate concern, and in turn, collective action4. Child-to-parent intergenerational learning—that is, the transfer of knowledge, attitudes or behaviours from children to parents5—may be a promising pathway to overcoming socio-ideological barriers to climate concern5. Here we present an experimental evaluation of an educational intervention designed to build climate change concern among parents indirectly through their middle school-aged children in North Carolina, USA. Parents of children in the treatment group expressed higher levels of climate change concern than parents in the control group. The effects were strongest among male parents and conservative parents, who, consistent with previous research1, displayed the lowest levels of climate concern before the intervention. Daughters appeared to be especially effective in influencing parents. Our results suggest that intergenerational learning may overcome barriers to building climate concern.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41558-019-0463-3
DO - 10.1038/s41558-019-0463-3
M3 - Letter
AN - SCOPUS:85065291882
SN - 1758-678X
VL - 9
SP - 458
EP - 462
JO - Nature Climate Change
JF - Nature Climate Change
IS - 6
ER -
