Efficacy Foundations for Risk Communication: How People Think About Reducing the Risks of Climate Change

Believing action to reduce the risks of climate change is both possible (self‐efficacy) and effective (response efficacy) is essential to motivate and sustain risk mitigation efforts, according to current risk communication theory. Although the public recognizes the dangers of climate change, and is deluged with lists of possible mitigative actions, little is known about public efficacy beliefs in the context of climate change. Prior efficacy studies rely on conflicting constructs and measures of efficacy, and links between efficacy and risk management actions are muddled. As a result, much remains to learn about how laypersons think about the ease and effectiveness of potential mitigative actions. To bring clarity and inform risk communication and management efforts, we investigate how people think about efficacy in the context of climate change risk management by analyzing unprompted and prompted beliefs from two national surveys (N = 405, N = 1,820). In general, respondents distinguish little between effective and ineffective climate strategies. While many respondents appreciate that reducing fossil fuel use is an effective risk mitigation strategy, overall assessments reflect persistent misconceptions about climate change causes, and uncertainties about the effectiveness of risk mitigation strategies. Our findings suggest targeting climate change risk communication and management strategies to (1) address gaps in people's existing mental models of climate action, (2) leverage existing public understanding of both potentially effective mitigation strategies and the collective action dilemma at the heart of climate change action, and (3) take into account ideologically driven reactions to behavior change and government action framed as climate action.     

Efficacy,Action, and Support for Reducing Climate Change Risks

A growing body of research demonstrates that believing action to reduce the risks of climate change is both possible (self‐efficacy) and effective (response efficacy) is essential to motivate and sustain risk mitigation efforts. Despite this potentially critical role of efficacy beliefs, measures and their use vary wildly in climate change risk perception and communication research, making it hard to compare and learn from efficacy studies. To address this problem and advance our understanding of efficacy beliefs, this article makes three contributions. First, we present a theoretically motivated approach to measuring climate change mitigation efficacy, in light of diverse proposed, perceived, and previously researched strategies. Second, we test this in two national survey samples (Amazon's Mechanical Turk N = 405, GfK Knowledge Panel N = 1,820), demonstrating largely coherent beliefs by level of action and discrimination between types of efficacy. Four additive efficacy scales emerge: personal self‐efficacy, personal response efficacy, government and collective self‐efficacy, and government and collective response efficacy. Third, we employ the resulting efficacy scales in mediation models to test how well efficacy beliefs predict climate change policy support, controlling for specific knowledge, risk perceptions, and ideology, and allowing for mediation by concern. Concern fully mediates the relatively strong effects of perceived risk on policy support, but only partly mediates efficacy beliefs. Stronger government and collective response efficacy beliefs and personal self‐efficacy beliefs are both directly and indirectly associated with greater support for reducing the risks of climate change, even after controlling for ideology and causal beliefs about climate change.     

Towards a Coherent Policy of Co–Development

This paper seeks to demonstrate the major benefits that a dedicated policy of co–development can bring to three major actors affected by immigration: receiving states, countries of origin, and the immigrants themselves. True co–development involves sustained cooperation between receiving nations and source nations in the management of both legal and illegal migratory flows. At the same time, it fosters the economic and demographic development of both the sending and the receiving country. This cooperation is based in large measure on understanding that, more than ever before, the best migration policy for developed nations is one that seeks not to block, but to smoothly regulate the circulation and re–circulation of the majority of foreigners and immigrants. As a result, Northern countries will be able to concentrate the state’s limited control resources on selected targets such as criminals, delinquents, and migrants arrested multiple times for unauthorized entry or residence. Developed nations must recognize that the vast majority of immigrants wish to retain close links to their country of origin, and with drastically improved transportation and communication links, most migrants are increasingly able to do so. Northern states should adapt policies that, for the most part, accommodate immigrants’ wishes to maintain active ties to their homeland. Such measures are generally in the best interests of the receiving countries, source countries, and of course, the immigrants themselves. The various problems faced by these three main actors regarding migration as they seek to pursue activities in their best interest is considered, followed by the advantages that a policy of co–development has for these actors: for receiving nations in terms of meeting labour force needs, reducing demographic problems, and controlling illegal immigration; and for source countries in terms of increased access to visas, increased amounts and efficacy of remittances, and the return and re–circulation of skilled and seasonal workers, and retirees. The interests of the immigrants themselves will be considered at various points throughout the discussion, in the context of the effects that the various policies of receiving and sending countries will have on them.     

Challenges to professionalism and union voting intentions: The case of pharmacists

Using data from a national survey of pharmacists who are members of the American Pharmaceutical Association, we examine the union voting intentions of employee pharmacists. We find that union instrumentality regarding professionalism is a primary predictor of union voting intent among these employees. In addition, this predictor mediates the relationship between the level of professionalism at a pharmacist’s current employment situation and his or her expected union vote. Also important to union voting intent are respondent beliefs about union instrumentality regarding pecuniary issues, prior union experience, as well as overall job satisfaction. Implications for employers, unions, and researchers are drawn. We thank Mary Graham, Jann Skelton, Paul Swiercz, Terry Thomason, and participants at the Seventh Bar-gaining Group Conference at Michigan State University for their comments on earlier versions of this paper. This research was made possible by a grant from the American Pharmaceutical Association.     

A continuous sampling plan using CUSUMs

A Continuous Sampling Plan, CSP-CUSUM, is proposed based on the use of Cumulative Sums (CUSUMs) for deciding when to switch between the phases of sampling inspection and 100% inspection. The Geometric CUSUM, also termed the Run-length CUSUM, is chosen for this purpose, and two separate CUSUMs are to be operated, one for each inspection phase. The conventional measures of performance for CSPs such as average outgoing quality, average fraction inspected, and average proportion passed under sampling inspection are evaluated for CSP-CUSUM, and comparisons with some standard CSPs are presented. An additional performance-measure, Average Cycle Length, is proposed. A table is provided to aid the choice of parameters for the operation of CSP-CUSUM. It is recommended that a Geometric CUSUM control chart be maintained in parallel with CSP-CUSUM to detect significant upward shifts in the incoming fraction defective.     

Individualisation, choice and structure: a discussion of current trends in sociological analysis

In this paper we seek to explore a tendency in current sociological thought to highlight notions of choice and autonomy in writings about contemporary Western societies. We wish to draw attention to some of the consequences of leaving out discussions of the structural aspects of societies and people's lives, for individuals as well as for the development and application of sociological theory and its ability to understand the connection between history and individual biography. Our discussion is based on qualitative research that we have conducted in recent years, and draws on focus groups with young people in Norway and Britain. From this critique we seek to demonstrate how concepts that take account of context and structure as well individual subjectivities can create a better ‘fit’ with complex and diverse realties.     

MODEL-ASSISTED HIGHER-ORDER CALIBRATION OF ESTIMATORS OF VARIANCE

In survey sampling, interest often centres on inference for the population total using information about an auxiliary variable. The variance of the estimator used plays a key role in such inference. This study develops a new set of higher‐order constraints for the calibration of estimators of variance for various estimators of the population total. The proposed strategy requires an appropriate model for describing the relationship between the response and auxiliary variable, and the variance of the auxiliary variable. It is therefore referred to as a model‐assisted approach. Several new estimators of variance, including the higher‐order calibration estimators of the variance of the ratio and regression estimators suggested by Singh, Horn & Yu and Sitter & Wu are special cases of the proposed technique. The paper presents and discusses the results of an empirical study to compare the performance of the proposed estimators and existing counterparts.