Agents of change: Understanding and improving different groups' efficacy for fair and diverse climate action

Meeting ambitious climate change mitigation targets requires behaviour change to play a more significant role than thus far (Carmichael, 2019). However, current focus on consumer behaviours overlooks the multiple roles individuals play in climate action (Nielsen et al., 2021), including influence and citizenship behaviours like discussing climate change and voting (Hampton & Whitmarsh, 2023).

Further, more work is needed to understand how people's sense of agency and efficacy (personal self-efficacy, personal response efficacy, collective efficacy, and collective response efficacy; Bandura, 1997; Koletsou & Mancy, 2011) towards different forms of climate action is developed.

Although the predictive power of personal efficacy in climate action is well-documented (Kothe et al., 2019, Truelove & Parks, 2012; Hines et al., 1987), collective efficacy remains underexplored, and no studies have investigated all four efficacies-and their unique impact on various climate actions-in the same study (Choi & Hart, 2021; Doherty & Webler, 2016). To develop and implement effective behaviour change strategies for climate action across domains, comprehensively understanding the publics' relevant efficacy-behaviour relationships is essential.

Such an understanding also requires exploring contextual influences on climate action. Despite identified influences of sociodemographic factors, like age and income, on efficacy-behaviour relationships in some studies (Bradley et al., 2020; Roser-Renouf et al., 2014), evidence concerning how and why efficacy-behaviour relationships differ between groups, circumstances and capabilities remains scarce.

These differences also necessitate a justice-led approach; ensuring that diverse voices and experiences are included equally in future visions of climate action (Burnham et al., 2013) is not only imperative for a just transition, but for tailored, effective interventions.

This research will develop a coherent framework integrating different types of efficacy and climate action, reflecting their variation due to sociodemographic and contextual factors. A mixed-methods approach will:

1. Explore how people perceive efficacy for different climate actions, and how and why this is influenced by sociodemographic and contextual factors.

2. Construct a theoretical framework drawing together different forms of efficacy and climate action and use this to investigate what factors can increase efficacy and action.

3. Develop and test efficacy-based interventions targeting specific climate actions, considering sociodemographic and contextual factors.

Study 1 will use focus groups with diverse sociodemographic groups from the UK public to understand efficacy for different climate actions, their influence on behaviour, and how and why different sociodemographic and contextual factors influence agency. Thematic analysis will examine experiences of climate action and efficacy to understand how future interventions may overlap with, exacerbate, or allay contemporary patterns of inequality.

Study 2 will use a quantitative online survey to investigate levels of different efficacies for climate actions identified by Hampton and Whitmarsh (2023). It will examine the prevalence of efficacy beliefs, types of climate action, and how these actions are predicted by both psychological variables (e.g., efficacies) and sociodemographic and contextual factors (e.g., income, disability) using regression and cluster analyses.

Study 3 will involve a systematic review of the effectiveness of various interventions for climate actions across domains (Hampton & Whitmarsh, 2023). Its insights, with findings from Studies 1 and 2, will inform the design of a novel intervention to boost efficacy and promote climate action, with a focus on under-explored domains of influence and citizenship. Intervention design will be in collaboration with external partner, 'Another Way', who can provide access to diverse populations.