References
Bernays, E. 1923. Crystalizing public opinion.
Book written by the founder of public relations, and advisor to most presidents between 1930 and 1990. It outlines the role identity plays in influencing public opinion, with societies/clubs/workplaces being major influencers on how we view our self.
Bord, Richard, Ann Fisher and Robert O’Connor 1998. “Public Perceptions of Global Warming: United States and International Perspectives.” Climate Research 11 (1):75-84.
Evidence of limited willingness to sacrifice and difference of concern across different countries.
Bord, Richard, Ann Fisher and Robert O’Connor 1998. “Public Perceptions of Global Warming: United States and International Perspectives.” Climate Research 11 (1):75-84.
Krosnic, Jon, Allyson Holbrook, Laura Lowe and Penny Visser 2006 “The Origins and
Consequences of Democratic Citizen’s Policy Agendas: A Study of Popular Concern about Global Warming” Climate Change 77:7-43.
Observe that people stopped paying attention to global climate change when they realized that there is no easy solution for it. Instead they note that many people judged as serious only those problems for which they thought action could be taken.
Nisbet, Matthew and Teresa Myers 2007. The Polls – Trends: Twenty Years of Public Opinion about Global Warming. Public Opinion Quarterly Vol. 71(3): 444–470.
Nisbet and Myers conduct a systematic review of trends in public opinion regarding global warming.
Cohen, Stanley States of Denial: Knowing About Atrocities and Suffering, Polity Press, 2001.
Cohen provides in depth coverage of how people avoid uncomfortable situations on the personal level, as well as how personal avoidance is translated into political avoidance and vice versa.
Immerwahr, John 1999. Waiting for a Signal: Public Attitudes toward Global Warming, the
Environment and Geophysical Research. Public Agenda/ American Geophysical Union.
One of the first studies to examine why there is an indirect link between a person’s knowledge of climate science and whether or not they take action (e.g. to go against the information deficit approach). Immerwahr conducts focus groups on climate change (and other issues) and concludes regarding climate change in particular that respondents, “seemed to have hit a wall.” Respondents did show deep concern regarding global warming, but their concern did not translate into action: “our research suggests that what the public is most skeptical about is not the existence of problems but our ability to solve them.”
Kellstedt, Paul, Sammy Zahran and Arnold Vedlitz 2008. Personal Efficacy, the Information
Environment, and Attitudes Toward Global Warming and Climate Change in the United States Risk Analysis 28( 1): 113-126.
They find that the degree of information a person has regarding climate change, their confidence in scientists and their personal efficacy regarding climate change interact so that the more informed respondents both feel less personally responsible for global warming and also show less concern.
Krosnick, Jon, Allyson Holbrook, Laura Lowe and Penny Visser 2006 “The Origins and Consequences of Democratic Citizen’s Policy Agendas: A Study of Popular Concern about Global Warming” Climate Change 77:7-43.
They observe that people stopped paying attention to global climate change when they realize that there is no easy solution for it. Instead they note that many people judge as serious only those problems for which they think action can be taken.
Sandvik, Hanno 2008 Public concern over global warming correlates negatively with national wealth Climatic Change 90(3): 333-341
Sandvik examines data on public concern for climate change from 46 countries, with results pointing to a negative association between concern and national wealth (GDP) and carbon dioxide emissions
Stoll-Kleemann, Tim O’Riordan and Carlo Jaeger “The Psychology of Denial Concerning Climate Mitigation Measures: Evidence from Swiss Focus Groups” Global Environmental Change 11: 107-117.
Norgaard, Kari Marie. 2006a. “‘People Want to Protect Themselves a Little Bit’: Emotions, Denial, and Social Movement Nonparticipation.” Sociological Inquiry 76:372-396.
Ethnographic and interview data from a rural Norwegian community describes how people avoided thinking about climate change in part because doing so raised fears of ontological security, emotions of helplessness and guilt, and was a threat to individual and collective senses of identity.
Opotow, Susan and Leah Weiss 2000. “New Ways of Thinking About Environmentalism: Denial and the Process of Moral Exclusion in Environmental Conflict” Journal of Social Issues 56, 3, 475-490.
The authors examine “moral orientations” that influence environmental conflict. Opotow and Weiss create a typology of three kinds of denial in environmental conflict: denial of outcome severity, denial of stakeholder inclusion, and denial of Self-involvement.
Zerubavel, Evitar. The Elephant in the Room: Silence and Denial in Everyday Life New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Wide ranging and persuasive analysis of the social organization of denial. Zerubavel notes that denial is normally studied on the psychological level, but it is our society that tells us what to pay attention to and what to ignore, what to worry about and what is acceptable. Therefore we must study denial with a sociological lens.