Misperceptions of climate attitudes among farmers and the general public

Climate change is a collective action problem that urgently requires people to take cooperative action. Most people decide whether to cooperate based on what they think others will do. However, perceptions may be inaccurate due to pluralistic ignorance (collectively underestimating the majority’s view) and false consensus effects (overestimating the prevalence of one’s own view). Misperceptions could especially afflict climate mitigation, as different groups in the population (e.g. urban residents, farmers) are asked to contribute in different ways and may have only selective exposure to the views and behaviours of others. This study investigates climate misperceptions within and across groups. We compared how farmers and the rural and urban (non-farmer) public see their own, their peers’, and each other’s climate worry and willingness to take group-specific climate action. We undertook an original survey in Ireland (n = 467 farmers, 1200 non-farmers). Participants rated their own, farmers’, and the public’s worry and willingness. We confirm pluralistic ignorance that varies across group boundaries. Both farmers and non-farmers are worried about climate change and willing to take climate action, but all groups except farmers underestimate farmers’ worry and willingness, and all groups underestimate the public’s worry and willingness. Non-farmers underestimate both the public and farmers more than farmers do, but rural and urban non-farmers do not differ. We also confirm strong false consensus effects: the more people are worried and willing to cooperate, the more they think other people are, too. Effect sizes are larger for false consensus effects than for pluralistic ignorance. These findings advance our understanding of misperceptions about climate action. They highlight the need for communications to counter cross-sectoral misperceptions, showing how individual biases may be even more important than collective misperceptions.