Climate action on the mind: a longitudinal study of Americans’ psychosocial drivers of high-impact climate behaviors

Abstract Widespread adoption of high-impact climate-positive behaviors can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To motivate these behaviors, social scientists and policymakers need to understand people’s psychological and social (psychosocial) factors to create an environment that encourages widespread adoption. Past longitudinal survey research has focused on tracking changes in broad climate change beliefs and attitudes, risk perceptions, and climate policy support. While behavioral and psychological research has identified key beliefs and attitudes as enabling conditions, this work tends to study a single snapshot in time, often in a narrow population, not allowing for the identification of trends. In the present paper, we launch the annual Climate Action on the Mind (CAM) longitudinal survey, which aims to track key psychosocial factors shown to be important enablers of climate behaviors. Our work focuses on behaviors relevant to households in the United States, such as installing solar panels and driving an electric vehicle. The paper introduces the first two waves of the CAM survey from December 2021 (n = 2031) and June 2023 (n = 1528), quota-matched to represent the US adult population on key demographics. Our research offers novel insights into how the enabling psychological conditions for high-impact climate-positive behaviors are shifting in the United States, helping to inform the development of future communication strategies, interventions, and climate policy.