No evidence for effectiveness of behavioral interventions to mitigate climate change after adjusting for publication bias
Behavioral interventions on citizens are often promoted as a low-cost route to induce environmentally friendly behavior, yet published estimates of their effectiveness are highly variable and prone to selective reporting. We reanalyzed the evidence of behavioral interventions on citizens. We conducted Robust Bayesian Meta-Analysis (RoBMA), averaging across a full set of publication-bias adjusted models, to the 144 effect estimates (91 studies) compiled by Nisa et al. (2019). The biasadjusted model-averaged posterior mean standardized effect of behavioral interventions on citizens is shrunk to 0.00 (95 % credible interval 0.00; 0.00), with a Bayes factor of 66 favoring the null. Accordingly, the previously reported noteworthy mean benefit of -0.093 (95% confidence interval - 0.123; -0.063) of behavioral interventions, including promising light-touch interventions (nudges or social comparison), on households and individuals is an artefact of publication bias. There is, however, evidence for small between-study heterogeneity, indicating that some specific interventions might have an effect. Exploratory subgroup tests offered only weak, inconsistent hints of contextspecific gains. These results imply that, on average, behavioral interventions on households and individuals are unlikely to deliver material climate benefits.