Milfont Taciano L, Wilson Marc S, Sibley Chris G
School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand.
School of Psychology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
PLoS One. 2017 Mar 20;12(3):e0174246. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0174246. eCollection 2017.
Polls examining public opinion on the subject of climate change are now commonplace, and one-off public opinion polls provide a snapshot of citizen's opinions that can inform policy and communication strategies. However, cross-sectional polls do not track opinions over time, thus making it impossible to ascertain whether key climate change beliefs held by the same group of individuals are changing or not. Here we examine the extent to which individual's level of agreement with two key beliefs ("climate change is real" and "climate change is caused by humans") remain stable or increase/decrease over a six-year period in New Zealand using latent growth curve modelling (n = 10,436). Data were drawn from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study, a probabilistic national panel study, and indicated that levels of agreement to both beliefs have steadily increased over the 2009-2015 period. Given that climate change beliefs and concerns are key predictors of climate change action, our findings suggest that a combination of targeted endeavors, as well as serendipitous events, may successfully convey the emergency of the issue.
如今，调查公众对气候变化问题看法的民意调查已屡见不鲜，一次性的民意调查能提供公民意见的简要情况，为政策制定和沟通策略提供参考。然而，横断面调查无法长期跟踪意见变化，因此无法确定同一群人持有的关键气候变化信念是否发生了改变。在此，我们运用潜在增长曲线模型（n = 10436），研究了新西兰民众在六年时间里对两个关键信念（“气候变化是真实存在的”和“气候变化是由人类活动引起的”）的认同程度保持稳定或上升/下降的情况。数据取自新西兰态度与价值观研究，这是一项概率性全国性面板研究，结果表明在2009 - 2015年期间，民众对这两个信念的认同程度均稳步上升。鉴于气候变化信念和担忧是气候变化行动的关键预测因素，我们的研究结果表明，有针对性的努力以及偶然事件相结合，可能会成功传达该问题的紧迫性。
