University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna What We Think Others Think and Do About Climate Change: A Multicountry Test of Pluralistic Ignorance and Public-Consensus Messaging Most people believe in human-caused climate change, yet this public consensus can be collectively underestimated (pluralistic ignorance). Across two studies using primary data (n = 3,653 adult participants; 11 countries) and secondary data (ns = 60,230 and 22,496 adult participants; 55 countries), we tested (a) the generalizability of pluralistic ignorance about climate-change beliefs, (b) the effects of a public-consensus intervention on climate action, and (c) the possibility that cultural tightness-looseness might serve as a country-level predictor of pluralistic ignorance. In Study 1, people across 11 countries underestimated the prevalence of proclimate views by at least 7.5% in Indonesia (90% credible interval, or CrI = [5.0, 10.1]), and up to 20.8% in Brazil (90% CrI = [18.2, 23.4]. Providing information about the actual public consensus on climate change was largely ineffective, except for a slight increase in willingness to express one’s proclimate opinion, δ = 0.05 (90% CrI = [−0.02, 0.11]). In Study 2, pluralistic ignorance about willingness to contribute financially to fight climate change was slightly more pronounced in looser than tighter cultures, highlighting the particular need for pluralistic-ignorance research in these countries. de TEXT journal article Wissenschaftlicher Artikel Articolo di rivista Text Wissenschaftlicher Artikel Testo Articolo di rivista Text journal article Climate Change Pluralistic Ignorance Social Norm Cultural Tightness-looseness Cross-country Generalizability 2025 2025 Sandra J. Geiger (Environmental Psychology Unit, Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Austria) Karla A. Garduño-Realivazquez (Department of Accounting, University of Sonora, Mexico) Christian A. P. Haugestad (Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Norway) Hirotaka Imada (Research Institute for Future Design, Kochi University of Technology, Japan) Aishwarya Iyer (Department of Psychology, Christ University, India) Carya Maharja (Yayasan Puspa Hanuman Indonesia, Indonesia) Daniel C. Mann (Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Austria) Michalina Marczak (School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland) Olivia Melville (Department of Biology, University of Victoria, Canada) Sari R. R. Nijssen (Environmental Psychology Unit, Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Austria) Nattavudh Powdthavee (Department of Economics, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) Radisti A. Praptiwi (Research Center for Ecology and Ethnobiology, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Indonesia) Gargi Ranade (The Shallow End Collective, Bangalore, India) Claudio D. Rosa (Development and Environment, State University of Santa Cruz, Brazil) Valeria Vitale (Department of Psychology of Developmental and Socialization Processes, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy) Małgorzata Winkowska (Department of Ecology and Environmental Science, Umeå University, Sweden) Lei Zhang (Centre for Human Brain Health, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom) Mathew P. White (Cognitive Science Hub, University of Vienna, Austria) Jana K. Köhler (Environmental Psychology Unit, Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Austria) Zenith N. C. Delabrida (Department of Psychology, Federal University of Sergipe, Brazil) SAGE