Too many ways to help: How to promote climate change mitigation behaviors

What are the most effective messages to mobilize individuals to engage in climate change mitigation behaviors? One common strategy is to tell individuals about many easy ways they can get involved. However, psychological theories of choice suggest this communication strategy might backfire: when presented with too many options, people become less likely to make any choice at all. Here we conduct a two-wave survey experiment to see if a similar phenomenon occurs with regards to mitigation. In the first wave, we randomly assigned subjects to see messages encouraging either 1, 5, 10, or 20 pro-environmental behaviors drawn from a set which was pre-tested to get a rating of how difficult they were to carry out. Consistent with a theory we call “mitigation overload”, we find that participants who saw a message suggesting 20 relatively easy ways they could engage in climate activism or mitigation felt less efficacious. One week later, these participants also reported engaging in fewer mitigation behaviors compared to those who saw fewer ways to mitigate. These results suggest more isn't always better when communicating ways individuals can help stop climate change.