https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9843-9964
Figures
Abstract
Climate change is a pressing issue that requires action across multiple levels, from individual behavior to international cooperation. On the individual level, one of the easiest and most important actions people can take is to talk about climate change. However, relatively few Americans engage in climate change discussions with family and friends, creating what has been referred to as “climate silence”. Here we investigate factors that predict how often people have these discussions. Using data from three recent waves of a nationally representative survey of American adults, we find that worry, perceived risk, perceived social norms (descriptive and injunctive), perceived scientific consensus, and exposure to media coverage of global warming all significantly predict discussion of global warming with family and friends. We conclude with suggestions that can stimulate climate conversations.
Citation: Orr M, Borth A, Kotcher J, Campbell E, Myers T, Maibach E, et al. (2025) Breaking the climate silence: Predictors of discussing global warming with family and friends. PLOS Clim 4(4): e0000538. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000538
Editor: Terence Epule Epule, UQAT: Universite du Quebec en Abitibi Temiscamingue, CANADA
Received: August 19, 2024; Accepted: February 17, 2025; Published: April 17, 2025
Copyright: © 2025 Orr et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability: The dataset used for this project is available as a Supporting Information file.
Funding: This research is part of the Climate Change in the American Mind project jointly conducted by George Mason University and Yale University. This research was funded by the Schmidt Family Foundation (AL), the U.S. Energy Foundation (AL, EM), the MacArthur Foundation (AL), and the Grantham Foundation (AL). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of this manuscript. AL & SR received salary support from the above funders.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Introduction
Globally, both people and the natural world are subject to the current and future impacts of climate change [1]. Reducing climate change will require action on all levels: international, national, state, local, and individual [1]. For individuals, some of the most impactful climate-change-mitigating actions include eating less meat, driving and flying less often, driving fuel efficient vehicles, and getting involved with climate advocacy (from contacting policymakers to participating in civil disobedience actions; [2,3]). Although personal mitigation behaviors are important, the climate crisis cannot be solved through individual actions alone. Limiting global warming requires systemic changes, including government policies to promote large-scale reductions in carbon emissions.
Personal discussion is a vital tool component of social change. Studies have shown that discussing climate change with others may increase support for climate-related policies, as well as knowledge about climate change [4–7]. However, only about one-third (35%) of Americans discuss climate change even occasionally [8,9]. Accordingly, this research seeks to identify the factors associated with frequency of climate conversations with family and friends, with a secondary emphasis on which of these factors are the strongest in predicting conversation frequency. We find that worry, perceived risk, perceived social norms (descriptive and injunctive), perceived scientific consensus, and exposure to media coverage of global warming all significantly and positively predict discussion of global warming with family and friends among Americans. As such, we hope these results will be used to inform climate communication efforts that aim to increase climate conversations.
Literature review
Spiral of silence theory postulates that when people perceive their opinion to be in the minority amongst the public, they are hesitant to speak about it publicly—and the less they hear others voice that opinion, the less likely they are to voice it themselves [10]. Spiral of silence theory also postulates that the opposite is true—people become more likely to voice an opinion when they perceive it to be gaining popularity amongst peers. For example, there is evidence for a “proclimate social feedback loop,” where increased discussion about climate change leads to increased concern and willingness to act, which in turn leads to more discussion [4]. Interpersonal communication about science in general, and climate change in particular, can motivate further action on these topics, particularly promoting changes in beliefs, attitudes, voting with climate change in mind, and interpersonal engagement [4–7,11,12]. In addition, discussing climate change specifically with family and friends is associated with positive changes in a variety of climate perceptions and attitudes. These include increased acceptance that climate change is happening and human-caused, as well support for climate-related policies [4], often regardless of the level of climate knowledge of those having the discussions ([5]). Further, previous work has demonstrated that there is a relationship between interpersonal discussion, social relationships, and activism, such that those engaging in discussions are more likely to be engaged in activism [13].
Although climate change discussions may play a role in climate action, few Americans actually engage in the specific climate action of discussion with family and friends. This has been consistent since at least 2009, with more Americans indicating that they discuss global warming with their family and friends “rarely” or “never” than “occasionally” or “often” (Fig 1; [9]). The low frequency of climate change discussion indicates the need to better understand the antecedents of climate change discussions, given the potential role of such discussions in catalyzing deeper and more sustained public engagement with the issue.
To the extent that climate discussions themselves are both an antecedent to, and a form of, personal climate action [14], we suggest that well-known predictors of other types of climate action may also be related to climate discussions. Here, we explore the following potential predictors of discussing climate change with family and friends: key beliefs about global warming (i.e., perceived agreement among scientists about the existence of human-caused global warming, certainty that global warming is happening, belief that global warming is human-caused, worry about global warming, perceived risk of global warming), general affect toward global warming, social norms regarding global warming, and exposure to global warming in the media.
Key beliefs
Previous work has demonstrated the importance of a number of key beliefs that can promote increased engagement with and support for climate policies and actions. The first is knowledge of the scientific consensus about climate change - 97% of climate scientists agree that climate change is happening due to human activities that burn fossil fuels [15]. Knowledge of this consensus leads to heightened belief that climate change is happening, and in turn, increased engagement with climate policy and action [16,17]. Similar links between climate perceptions and engagement with climate policy and action have been found for the belief that human activity causes climate change [18], risk perception (i.e, the perception that climate change is a threat to oneself or others; e.g., [13,18–22]), worry about climate change [22,23], and belief certainty (i.e., the confidence that a person has in their belief that climate change is happening; [18]). Because we are treating climate discussion as a climate action, we hypothesize that these same factors may be important predictors of discussing global warming with family and friends, such that:
Although we focus on these beliefs as predictors of climate change discussion, we recognize that they can also change as a result of climate change discussion, according to the previously described “pro-climate social feedback loop” in which discussion of climate changes opinions encourages further discussion, leading to further opinion change, and so on [4].
General Affect.
General affect is a summative assessment of an attitude object (i.e., “the degree of positive or negative feelings people associate with an attitude object;” [20], p. 938). In the context of this study, general affect about climate refers to how good or bad someone thinks global warming is [20,24]. Goldberg and colleagues [20] found that general affect predicted climate policy support among registered voters, leading them to propose that general affect should be considered when predicting global warming attitudes and behaviors. Accordingly, we included general affect as a potential predictor of discussion of global warming with family and friends. We follow the definition of Goldberg et al. [20] where positive affect indicates good feelings about global warming, and negative affect indicates bad feelings, and hypothesize that higher levels of negative general affect will predict higher levels of discussion.
Perceived descriptive norms and injunctive norms
Social norms are perceptions of how other members of society generally think, feel, or behave [25]. The Focus Theory of Normative Conduct proposes that there are two types of social norms: descriptive and injunctive [25]. Perceived descriptive norms refer to perceptions about whether or not others are acting in a certain way (e.g., perceptions of how many people are engaged in climate-related actions or believe that climate change is real and caused by human actions). For example, this means that if someone sees those around them taking an action, such as conserving energy, they themselves are more likely to also take that action [26]. On the other hand, perceived injunctive norms refer to perceptions of whether or not a behavior or belief is socially approved (e.g., the perception of whether or not others approve of engaging in climate action). Therefore, if someone sees conserving energy as socially acceptable and desirable to those important to them, that person is more likely to conserve energy [26].
Theory and research indicate that social norms influence people’s climate- and environment-related behaviors, such as making eco-friendly consumer choices and conserving resources [26]. Additionally, social norms predict support for climate-friendly government policies [19,20,27].
Accordingly, we offer the following hypotheses and include both descriptive and injunctive norms in our model:
Global warming in the media
Research on agenda setting has demonstrated the power the media has to influence the salience and perceived importance of issues [28,29]. As such, what is visible in the media almost always becomes part of public discourse and conversation [30]. Mass media use and interpersonal discussion can interact in different ways to influence people’s beliefs [31]. For example, news content might prompt conversations about a topic, which lead to changes in one’s beliefs. Alternatively, anticipated conversation about a particular topic may motivate someone to seek out news about that topic, which in turn influences their beliefs. Media coverage of climate change can influence perceptions and acceptance of the issue and related policy support [32–35]. More specifically, discussing global warming with family and friends mediates the relationship between hostile media perceptions—the perception that media coverage is biased against one’s own views—and climate policy support [36]. Therefore, media exposure is a likely antecedent to discussing global warming with family and friends:
Given each of these potential predictors, we also seek to answer the following research question:
Methods
Ethics statement
This study was reviewed and approved by the George Mason University Institutional Review Board (IRBnet #531283). Formal written consent was obtained from individuals prior to participating in the study.
Participants
We conducted a secondary analysis of data collected from the three recent waves of a nationally representative cross-sectional survey of American adults ages 18 and older (N = 3,079). The first survey wave was fielded in December 2020 (n = 1,036), the second in March 2021 (n = 1,037), and the third in September 2021 (n = 1,006). All three survey waves were cross-sectional and followed the same sampling procedure. The sample population was drawn from Ipsos Knowledge Panel—a nationally-representative online panel of United States residents. Those contacted who chose to join the panel but did not have internet access were loaned a computer and provided with internet access. The survey instrument for all waves included questions related to participants’ beliefs and attitudes toward global warming, with an average completion time of 25 minutes. The items used in this analysis were the same across waves. S1 Table in the supplemental materials reports the demographic frequencies of the sample population in terms of gender, generation, education level, income bracket, race, and location.
Measures
Independent variables.
Perceived Consensus.
To measure participants’ perceptions about the level of consensus among scientists that human-caused global warming is happening, participants were asked, “To the best of your knowledge, what percentage of climate scientists think that human-caused global warming is happening?” Respondents were prompted to provide a percent between 0 and 100 using a continuous, sliding scale. “Don’t know” responses were coded as missing.
Belief Certainty.
This variable combined three survey items that measured how certain participants were that global warming is happening. Participants were first provided a definition of global warming and prompted to answer “Yes,” “No,” or “Don’t know” to, “What do you think: Do you think global warming is happening?” Participants could also refuse to answer this question. If participants selected “Yes,” they were asked, “How sure are you that global warming is happening?” with response options being Response options were 1 = Not at all sure, 2 = Somewhat sure, 3 = Very sure, and 4 = Extremely sure. If participants selected “No,” they were asked, “How sure are you that global warming is not happening?” Response options were 1 = Not at all sure, 2 = Somewhat sure, 3 = Very sure, and 4 = Extremely sure. These three items were combined into a 9-point, ordinal scale ranging from 1 = Extremely sure global warming is not happening to 9 = Extremely sure global warming is happening; the scale point “5” represents respondents who selected “Don’t know” to the question “Do you think global warming is happening”.
Worry.
Participants were asked “How worried are you about global warming?” with responses on a 4-point scale ranging from 1 = Not at all worried to 4 = Very worried.
Belief in human causation.
Participants were asked “Assuming global warming is happening, do you think it is…” on a 4-point scale where 1 = Caused mostly by human activity, 2 = Caused mostly by natural changes in the environment, 3 = Other (Please specify), and 4 = None of the above because global warming isn’t happening. This item was dichotomized to 1 = Human caused, 0=All other responses.
Perceived risk.
Participants responded to an 8-item measure asking how much they think global warming will harm themselves, their family, their community, and others (e.g., “People in the United States,” “People in developing countries,” “Future generations of people,” and “Plant and animal species”). Response options were 0 = Don’t know, 1 = Not at all, 2 = Only a little, 3 = A moderate amount, and 4 = A great deal. The eight items were averaged to calculate an overall score for risk perception (α = .97). “Don’t know” responses were treated as missing (i.e., responses to the remaining items were averaged to obtain an index score regardless of the number of “Don’t know” responses).
General affect.
Participants’ affective response to global warming was assessed by asking, “On a scale from -3 (Very Bad) to +3 (Very Good) do you think global warming is a bad thing or a good thing?” Responses were recoded to a 6-point scale where 1 = Very good and 6 = Very bad. “Never heard of global warming” was also offered as a response and was treated as missing data.
Perceived descriptive norms.
Participants’ perceived descriptive norms toward global warming were measured by asking, “How much of an effort do your family and friends make to reduce global warming?” Response options were on a 5-point scale with 1 = No effort, 5 = A great deal; “Don’t know” was also offered as a response, and treated as missing.
Perceived injunctive norms.
Participants were asked, “How important is it to your family and friends that you take action to reduce global warming?” Response options were on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 = Not at all important to 5 = Extremely important; “Don’t know” was also offered as a response, and treated as missing.
Global warming in the media.
Participants’ exposure to global warming via media was measured by asking, “About how often do you hear about global warming in the media (TV, movies, radio, newspapers/news websites, magazines, etc.)?” Response options were ordinal where 1 = Never, 2 = Once a year or less, 3 = Several times a year, 4 = At least once a month, 5 = At least once a week; “Not sure” was also offered as a response, and treated as missing.
Controls.
A variety of demographic variables were used as control or covariates. These variables included: survey wave, gender, age, education, income, race, political ideology, and party identification. Descriptive statistics for the categorical control variables can be found in S1 Table. Gender was recoded where 0 = Male and 1 = Female. Because of sample size constraints, race/ethnicity was coded dichotomously, where 0 = White, non-Hispanic (n = 2231) and 1 = all other races/ethnicities (n = 848). The political ideology item asked, “In general, do you think of yourself as,” with response options including 1 = Very conservative, 2 = Somewhat conservative, 3 = Moderate, middle of the road, 4 = Somewhat liberal, 5 = Very liberal. Party identification was coded by combining two survey items. The first item stated, “Generally speaking, do you think of yourself as….” Response options included: 1 = Republican, 2 = Democrat, 3 = Independent, 4 = Other (Please specify), and 5 = No party/not interested in politics. If participants selected “Independent” or “Other (Please specify), they were prompted to answer, “Do you think of yourself as closer to the…,” with response options being 1 = Republican party, 2 = Democratic party, and 3 = Neither. Responses to these two items were combined to create a 5-point variable, where 1 = Republican, 2 = Lean Republican, 3 = Independent/Other, 4 = Lean Democrat, and 5 = Democrat.
Analysis
To test our hypotheses, we conducted a multiple regression analysis in SPSS. Missing data were handled using listwise deletion. Multiple regression assumptions of normality, linearity, and homoscedasticity were deemed acceptable after observing histograms, bivariate scatterplots, and the standardized residual plot. Multicollinearity between worry and both belief certainty and risk perception was a potential concern (rs ≥.70). However, the variance inflation factors (VIFs) for the model did not exceed 5 and tolerances were above.1, indicating that multicollinearity was not of concern for the multiple regression analysis [37,38].
To address our secondary goal of finding which predictors of global warming discussion carry the most weight in predicting global warming discussion, we conducted a relative weight analysis (RWA). RWA is often used as a supplement to regression analysis to better explain the impact of correlated predictors relative to each other [39]. RWA provides both raw and rescaled weights for each predictor, where raw weights are the portion of model R2 explained by that predictor and sum to the total model R2; and rescaled weights represent the percentage of dependent variable variance explained by each predictor and sum to 100%. The RWA was completed using R, a free open-source statistics software, and an R script developed by Dr. Scott Tonidandel [40]. The dependent, independent, and control variables were the same for the RWA as for the unweighted regression analysis. Note that a weighted regression analysis is available in supplemental materials (S2 Table).
Results
Regression
Table 1 presents descriptive statistics and correlation coefficients among all continuous variables in the model. The regression analysis explained 45% of the variance in discussion of global warming with family and friends, F (17,1906) = 92.45, p <.001. Analysis of the regression coefficients indicated that five of the nine hypotheses were supported (see Table 2). Belief certainty, belief in human causation, and perceived scientific consensus were not significant predictors of discussion of global warming (failing to support H1, H2, and H3). Worry, perceived risk, perceived descriptive norms, perceived injunctive norms, and exposure to global warming in the media were all positive predictors of discussion of global warming (supporting H4, H5, H7, H8, and H9). General affect was a negative predictor of discussion of global warming, this relationship was in the opposite direction than hypothesized (failing to support H6). In summary, these results indicate that individuals are more likely to talk about global warming with family and friends when they are more worried about it, perceive it as a risk, perceive others around them as taking action to address it, perceive it as important to others that they themselves take action to address it, and are exposed to it in the media. However, the more people view global warming as a bad thing, the less they talk about it.
Relative weight analysis
Table 3 presents the results of the relative weight analysis. This model also accounts for 45% of the total variance in discussion of global warming. The five most important predictors of discussion of global warming were: perceived descriptive norms, perceived injunctive norms, worry, exposure to global warming in the media, and perceived risk. Together they accounted for 29% of the total variance explained in discussion of global warming (raw weight) and about 63% of the variance explained by the full model (raw weight).
Discussion
This study examined various predictors of discussing global warming with family and friends using nationally representative U.S. data collected between 2021-2022. We found that worry, perceived descriptive norms, hearing about global warming in the media, perceived injunctive norms, and risk perception positively predicted discussion of global warming with family and friends. We also found that general affect marginally negatively predicted discussion of global warming. Conversely, belief certainty, belief in human causation, and perceived scientific consensus did not significantly predict discussion of global warming with family and friends in the regression analysis. Results of the relative weight analysis indicated that perceived social norms—both descriptive and injunctive—were the strongest predictors of global warming discussion, followed closely by worry, and exposure to global warming in the media. Additionally, as seen in Table 3, all independent variables assessed in the RWA played a role in global warming discussion. Taken together, the results fully support five of our hypotheses (H4, H5, H7, H8, H9), as these predictors were significant in both the regression and relative weight analysis.
These results are consistent with previous findings about perceived social norms, which are powerful predictors of environment- and climate-related behavior [26]. Our findings add further empirical evidence to this body of research by demonstrating the relevance of perceived social norms to the important behavior of climate conversation. Given that most Americans underestimate the strength of the prevailing social norms about climate concerns [19,20,41], efforts to heighten public awareness of these social norms is likely to help create conditions conducive to climate conversations [42]. To do so, we recommend using news media, entertainment media, and social media, along with opinion leaders, to highlight and spread the word about the popularity of pro-climate opinions and behaviors [43].
Similarly, worry was an important predictor of discussion, and is also a well-documented predictor of support for public attitudes regarding climate change [23,44]. Our study’s findings extend this previous work by suggesting that worry is not just a key predictor in climate-related attitudes and policy support for Americans, but also an important element in predicting and encouraging climate-related behavior. To this end, describing the many causes for worry about climate change may help to increase the level of concern among people who are currently only marginally concerned; and communicating the social norm that most people in the United States are worried about climate change [45] is likely to help cultivate greater readiness for climate conversations. It is important to note, however, that this study investigated frequency of climate conversations, and conversations motivated by worry about global warming may lead to increased anxiety or mental distress if they are not accompanied by discussion of effective climate solutions [46].
Exposure to global warming in the media was another important predictor of discussion of global warming with family and friends. As noted in the literature review, it is well understood that exposure to a topic in the media increases its salience among the public and is often associated with increased discussion about that topic. The implication is that successful efforts to encourage and enable climate journalism—like Climate Matters [47] and Covering Climate Now [48]—are likely to be helpful in creating conditions supportive of climate conversations.
Related to worry, risk perception is also positively associated with people’s likelihood of engaging in climate conversation. As noted above, efforts to show people the range and seriousness of climate impacts—highlighting those impacts of greatest concern to them (e.g., reductions in air quality for people who struggle with respiratory illness)—is likely to increase both perceived risks and climate concerns, both of which can help create conditions conducive to increased levels of climate conversation.
Although prior research has found that belief in scientific consensus, belief certainty, belief in human causation, and general affect are all consistently strong predictors of climate-related attitudes, they were not significant positive predictors of discussion of global warming in the regression model. There are several potential explanations for our findings. Firstly, we note that the zero-order correlations between perception of consensus, belief certainty, general affect and discussion are all positive, and of moderate strength. Although our analysis did not show typical indicators of problems of multi-collinearity (i.e., VIF out of bounds), it may be that suppression is occurring [49] and/or that there are indirect effects of these predictors on discussion (i.e., that they each predict worry, which then predicts discussion); investigation of those indirect effects is outside the scope of this manuscript. Secondly, it may be due to differences between our model and past research; for example, it has been well established by the Gateway Belief Model that consensus belief, belief certainty and belief in human causation are important predictors of climate policy support; however, these constructs were not significant predictors in our study [44]. This may be due to the difference between policy support – the main focus of the Gateway Belief Model – and conversation, as these are two distinct climate behaviors; however, further research should investigate this discrepancy. Finally, general affect had a small, negative, significant association with global warming discussion, after controlling for the other variables in the model, suggesting that participants who perceived global warming to be a bad thing may be less likely to discuss it. This finding contradicts H6, which postulated that those with negative feelings about global warming would be more likely to discuss it. A possible explanation for this counter-intuitive finding may be that feelings of anxiety or hopelessness related to global warming may contribute to lower discussion likelihood, as people may be less likely to discuss topics that generate these negative feelings; however, we note that the relationship observed in this study is small, and potentially due to confounding effects in the model Despite lack of support for some hypotheses, the findings of this study further reinforce existing empirical literature, and point toward the constructs communication practitioners may focus on if they are to foster discussion of global warming among the American public.
Limitations and future research
It is important to note that the survey data, including the behavioral data about discussing global warming, were self-reported, and participants’ reports of their own behaviors may not be accurate. This work is correlational, and future research is needed to establish whether there are in fact causal relationships between the predictor variables we examined and discussion about global warming.
As previously mentioned, this study measured frequency of climate conversations, but the measure used is agnostic to the content of such discussions. An avenue for future research is to investigate how the motivational basis for a conversation about climate change influences conversational topics, and subsequent cognitive, affective, and behavior outcomes. This measure also specified global warming discussion with family and friends – responses to this question may differ if other groups were to be specified, such as coworkers or neighbors. As such, the findings of this study can only be applied to discussion with family and friends, not beyond these groups. There is also no distinction between starting these discussions or simply being involved in them, so this aspect of such conversations should also be investigated in further studies.
Finally, it is important to acknowledge that the study’s sample was the population of the United States. Much of the literature on beliefs, perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors toward climate change is based on research conducted in the U.S. and other developed countries. Therefore, we encourage expanding the research on these topics to vulnerable communities to better understand climate change communication and support a global effort to reduce climate change where academic research investigates additional perspectives, values, communities, and cultures. In short, while there may be limitations in the methods and results of our study, these limitations provide a springboard for future climate change communication research.
Conclusion
There has been a wealth of research on climate beliefs, attitudes, and risk perceptions, [18,20,23,44,50]. Prior research has shown that climate conversations may play an important role in promoting interest in climate change and support for climate-friendly government policies. In the current study, we investigated what beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions are most strongly related to climate conversations. This study identified perceived social norms (descriptive and injunctive), worry about global warming, perceived risk, and exposure to global warming in the media as important predictors of global warming discussion. The factors identified provide valuable guidance for those seeking to increase public discussion, thereby helping to break climate silence. Norms-based messages and outreach to local news media to bring global warming content to the forefront of coverage more frequently appear to be promising avenues.
As a final recommendation for further research, we highlight potential relationships between these predictors. Based on spiral of silence theory and agenda-setting theory [29], we postulate that exposure to global warming in the media may convey a social norm about the importance of global warming, which in turn may cultivate concern amongst the public that climate change is a major issue that requires action. However, future studies should investigate these connections further.
Acknowledgments
We thank Dr. Scott Tonidandel of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s College of Business for his help with the relative weight analysis and for providing his R script.
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