Increasing citizens' climate efforts through public leadership: an incentivized survey experiment

We conduct an online survey experiment among citizens of the municipality of Groningen in the Netherlands, in which we study the effect of public leadership on willingness to act against climate change. We send 35,000 letters to a random sample of citizens of the municipality of Groningen inviting them to take part in the online survey. The survey experiment has three treatment conditions and one control condition. The first treatment is an information provision treatment, in which respondents receive information about the climate actions of the municipality. The second treatment is a video treatment, in which respondents see a video of a public leader that gives a motivational speech about the importance to act against climate change. The third treatment combines the video and information provision treatments. The control group is passive (i.e., does not receive information and does not see a video). We are interested in the effect of the treatments on the willingness to act against climate change, measured by an incentivized allocation decision, and beliefs and norms regarding this willingness to act.

2025-03-31

2025-04-30

Allocation decision (self vs. climate mitigation charity); incentivized
Empirical belief about the allocation decision of others; incentivized
Normative belief about the allocation decision of others; incentivized

Willingness to contribute 1% of household income to fight climate change
Empirical belief about others’ willingness to contribute 1% of household income to fight climate change; incentivized

We conduct an online survey experiment among citizens of a large municipality in the Netherlands, in which we study the effect of public leadership on willingness to act against climate change. We study leadership in the form of actions by the municipality and in the form of individual leadership of the municipality using two treatments. A third treatment combines the two leadership treatments. There is also a control condition.

Stage 1: Elicitation of socio-economic background and prior beliefs
Selected socio-economic background variables
Measure of identification on different levels (e.g., national, municipal)
Measure of trust on different levels (e.g., national, municipal)
Climate change beliefs
Belief about climate actions of the municipality
Own climate actions
Own normative belief about others’ climate actions
Empirical belief about others’ climate actions; incentivized
Normative belief about others’ climate actions; incentivized

Stage 2: Treatments
Public Action Treatment (information provision treatment):
Respondents receive information about the climate mitigation actions of the municipality
Question capturing whether respondents know of the climate actions

Public Leader Treatment (video treatment):
Respondents see a video of a local public leader giving a motivational speech about the importance of climate mitigation actions
Question capturing whether respondents know the public leader in the video

Public Action + Public Leader Treatment:
Combination information provision treatment and video treatment
Questions capturing whether respondents know the public leader in the video and whether they know of the existence of the climate actions

Control Treatment:
Passive control group; respondents do not receive alternative information or videos.

Stage 3: Elicitation of outcomes
Allocation decision (self vs. climate mitigation charity); incentivized
Empirical belief about the allocation decision of others; incentivized
Normative belief about the allocation decision of others; incentivized
Willingness to contribute 1% of household income to fight climate change
Empirical belief about others’ willingness to contribute 1% of household income to fight climate change; incentivized

Stage 4: Elicitation of posterior beliefs and socio-economic background
Belief about whether the municipality finds it important to fight climate change
Belief about whether the municipality is a good example of fighting climate change
Belief about influence of own actions on fighting climate change
Belief about the influence of collective actions of citizens on fighting climate change
Beliefs about role of municipality and role of peers in motivation to fight climate change
Demand for political action
Personality
Selected socio-economic background variables
Left-right political ideology
Voting behaviour

The randomization is done by computer.

The unit of randomization is the individual.

No

2800 individual respondents.

2800 individual respondents.

700 individuals in Treatment A, 700 participants in Treatment B, 700 individuals in Treatment A+B, 700 individuals in control condition.

Based on a power analysis conducted with Optimal Design with alpha at 5% and beta at 80% and assuming a standardized effect size of 0.15, we need approximately 700 respondents in each treatment condition. With 4 conditions, this results in a final sample of 2800 respondents.