Americans realistically assess public views of climate change as a national problem

Abstract The public’s underestimation of other people’s climate beliefs, worry, and support for action has been described as a false sense of reality. The finding has led to correcting these second-order beliefs (beliefs about other people’s beliefs) to promote climate engagement and actions. In contrast, we demonstrate that Americans (N = 1980) realistically assesses other Americans opinions about climate change as national problem: They fairly accurately estimate the percentage of Americans (46% vs 41%, estimate vs. actual, respectively) who believe climate change is a “very big” problem; overestimate Republican’s opinions (29% vs. 13%) and accurately estimate Democrat’s views (66% vs. 67%). Following these estimates for Republicans and Democrats, their direct estimates of the size of the political divide on this topic are reasonably accurate (50% vs. 54%). Moreover, they are sensitive to the extent to which Americans, Democrats, and Republicans endorse this opinion relative to 19 other potential national top problems. Our research challenges the characterization of climate-related second-order beliefs, calls for attention to the topics that Americans think are most and least important, and has potential implications for communication about second-order beliefs as a means of motivating support for actions to address climate change.