When Politicians Misread the Public: Experimental Evidence that Politicians Underestimate Climate Policy Support and Norm-Based Solutions
type: CreativeWork
description: Because of the systemic influence of politicians’ decisions, and the striking disconnect between public demand for climate action and governments’ limited responses, this thesis investigates: Do politicians underestimate public support for climate policies? The social norm literature shows that citizens often underestimate climate policy support, contributing to a Spiral of Silence that discourages advocacy. Whether politicians hold such misperceptions remains an open empirical question, with serious implications for democratic representation, trust, and the pace of climate mitigation. The Introduction reviews the literature on social norm misperceptions and outlines the rationale of this thesis. This PhD was designed as a “full circle”: first integrating politicians’ perspectives to inform subsequent studies, then experimentally testing and correcting underestimation of climate policy support in current politicians, and finally returning the findings to those policy actors best placed to act on them. Chapter 1 presents qualitative results from interviews with former UK MPs, exploring whether perceived low public support is viewed as a barrier to political climate action. Chapter 2 presents an experiment with 611 Belgian politicians from Flanders, testing underestimation of climate policy support, and whether this underestimation can be reduced by a norm-based intervention presenting polling data evidence, polling data combined with dynamic norm evidence, or evidence of existing perceptual biases within politicians. Chapter 3 examines whether in a study with 617 participants from the UK public, such underestimation exists among citizens, and compares two norm-based interventions: Polling data vs. polling data accompanied by information on how public support changes when policy costs are made salient. In Chapter 4, an experiment with 100 UK Members of Parliament tests whether they underestimate climate policy support in the public, in voters of key parties in the UK,…
abstract: Because of the systemic influence of politicians’ decisions, and the striking disconnect between public demand for climate action and governments’ limited responses, this thesis investigates: Do politicians underestimate public support for climate policies? The social norm literature shows that citizens often underestimate climate policy support, contributing to a Spiral of Silence that discourages advocacy. Whether politicians hold such misperceptions remains an open empirical question, with serious implications for democratic representation, trust, and the pace of climate mitigation. The Introduction reviews the literature on social norm misperceptions and outlines the rationale of this thesis. This PhD was designed as a “full circle”: first integrating politicians’ perspectives to inform subsequent studies, then experimentally testing and correcting underestimation of climate policy support in current politicians, and finally returning the findings to those policy actors best placed to act on them. Chapter 1 presents qualitative results from interviews with former UK MPs, exploring whether perceived low public support is viewed as a barrier to political climate action. Chapter 2 presents an experiment with 611 Belgian politicians from Flanders, testing underestimation of climate policy support, and whether this underestimation can be reduced by a norm-based intervention presenting polling data evidence, polling data combined with dynamic norm evidence, or evidence of existing perceptual biases within politicians. Chapter 3 examines whether in a study with 617 participants from the UK public, such underestimation exists among citizens, and compares two norm-based interventions: Polling data vs. polling data accompanied by information on how public support changes when policy costs are made salient. In Chapter 4, an experiment with 100 UK Members of Parliament tests whether they underestimate climate policy support in the public, in voters of key parties in the UK,…
author: Tanase, Lisa-Maria
language: eng
keywords: politics, psychology
license: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/fde1712a-6232-4234-879a-e164d4d1e830/download
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
date published: 2025-09-09
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:23:59Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.124777