Barriers to Engagement

Study Results (V5)

�Data Analysis & Insights Circle �(formerly Feedback & Learning Cultures/Impact Analysis)

Aim:�To understand the psychological barriers that stop individuals from engaging with XR

Contents

1. Our Approach
2. Base Findings
3. Understanding ‘relatability’ with XR
4. Conclusions
5. Appendices

1. Our Approach

Our study method

• Nationally representative survey
• 1089 respondents
• Pool of respondents representative of UK population across age, gender and ethnicity

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Our new way of thinking about barriers to engagement:

1. Let’s be smarter about how we ask the question
• Dig below the surface!
• XR already has lots of data points on what people do or do not like about the movement and our tactics
• The Impact Analysis circle started out from a position of skepticism
• “I agree with your cause, but I don’t agree with your tactics” is probably not the full story�
2. Let’s acknowledge the importance of ‘onboarding pathways’ in engagement
• Step one for a new participant is not protest and arrest
• We identified a wider set of “XR activities” that constitute ‘engagement’

Being smarter about how we ask the question:

• We focused on ‘social identification’ as a key determinant of engagement:
• SIMPEA - Social Identity Model for Pro-Environmental Behaviour �(Fritsche I, Barth M, Jugert P, Masson T, Reese G. A social identity model of pro-environmental action (SIMPEA). Psychol Rev. 2018 Mar)�
• We measured social identification with XR as:
• Feeling like XR members are similar to the people around you
• Being in close social proximity to existing members
• And general social identification with the XR movement �(which correlated with first two)�
• We refer to this as “relatability” for the rest of this deck�
• We expected strong correlation between XR’s relatability and engagement in XR activities, based on the literature

Acknowledging the importance of ‘onboarding pathways’:

• The IA circle crowdsourced a list of XR activities that constitute ‘engagement’ (ie. a full range of “collective actions”, not just the typical high-commitment XR actions)�
• By looking at which activities had similar responses to these types of engagement, we’ve identified groups quantitatively derived from the data�
• This tells us something about various categories of XR activities�
• It might be possible that these categories align with a ‘persona’ - i.e. we can think of a type of person most attracted to doing a particular activity within XR

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Our research identified four personas, based on their likely activity in XR:

• Persona 1: ✊ Radical Activist�Most likely to: occupy businesses, disrupt a business, block a major road�
• Persona 2: 👩‍💼 Civic Activist �Most likely to: volunteer in a professional capacity, join a rebel ringer campaign, do admin tasks, write to council, donate large sums�
• Persona 3: 🪧 Visible Activist / “Seen and Not Heard” Activist / Virtue Signallers �Most likely to: wear an XR badge, join an XR march�
• Persona 4: 💻 Clicktivist �Most likely to: read an XR blog, defend XR online, defend XR in-person, like/share social media posts

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2. Our key insights

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A problem and an opportunity

Our key insights:

1. Most people don’t have a positive image of XR�
2. The vast majority of people do not find XR relatable�
3. The intention-action gap is real: many more people intend to take ‘collective action’ for the environment than actually do with XR�
4. Relatability is strongly correlated with engagement in XR, and closes the ‘inaction-action’ gap. If people relate to XR, they’re more likely to engage with us.�
5. It’s worth noting that not all ‘environmentalists’ find XR relatable

The data that suggests:�Most people don’t have a positive image of XR

<< least positive view most positive view >>

The data that suggests:�The vast majority of people do not find XR relatable

<< low identification high identification >>

The data that suggests:�The intention-action gap is real: many more people intend to take collective action than actually do with XR

<< never most often >>

<< not willing very willing >>

The data that suggests:

Increasing our relatability closes the intention-action gap

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Johnson-Neyman Plot outlining the effect of general intentions to take collective climate action on XR-specific collective actions, at levels of social identification with XR�

X axis: identification with XR

Y axis: slope of general intentions to take collective climate action on XR-specific collective actions

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It’s quite likely that if we were more relatable to environmentalists, then those environmentalists would start engaging with XR.

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As XR’s relatability increases, people’s general pro-environmental intentions become more closely related to their participation in XR activities.

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Key insight: The more relatable XR becomes, the more we can close the intention-action gap.

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The data that suggests:

Not all ‘environmentalists’ find XR relatable

Graphed on subset of population who have high environmental intentions (>3 on a 5 point scale)

<< low identification high identification >>

3. Understanding ‘relatability’

with XR

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A solution

Which factors affect XR’s ‘relatability’ (and therefore make people more likely to engage with us)?

• Individuals that self-identify as an environmentalist are +10% more likely to relate to XR
• Individuals with past pro-environmental behaviours are +30% more likely to relate to XR
• Those for whom engaging with XR is a social norm are +30-40% more likely to relate to XR
• Those with a positive image of XR are +50% more likely to relate to XR

This may be unsurprising and self-evident, but it is not inevitable. ‘Relatability’ is not always about positive image – it’s about people like or similar to you, who may still do things you don’t like. But with XR, the research found very strong correlation: you can’t relate to the members of XR if you don’t have a positive image of the movement.

The scale of the correlation is noteworthy. A 0.5 (c.+50%) correlation is extremely high.

What’s our image?

We know this already and this survey is consistent with previous research: people weight heavily towards ambivalence or dislike of XR.�

• People don’t think XR is representative of population (but they don’t necessarily think we’re “too hippy”)�
• People support our cause, not our actions�
• Most think XR is too disruptive of the public (universal) and too radical (less so) [see slide 20]�
• Most are also ambivalent or supportive of actions against big polluters [see slide 21]

The data that suggests:�Everybody thinks XR is too disruptive, but some of them don’t think it’s too radical

<< disagree agree >>

<< disagree agree >>

The data that suggests:

Everybody thinks XR is too disruptive, but many support the disruption of big polluters

<< disagree agree >>

<< disagree agree >>

Key insight:

People are more likely to relate to XR if we target big polluters

• Disrupting the general public is associated with people being less able to relate to XR (.46)�
• Disrupting big polluters is associated with people being more able to relate to XR (.48) �
• This is highly significant. A 1-point increase in support for actions against big polluters on the scales below increases relatability by 0.5 – from ‘somewhat’ to ‘very much’.

Both have very high magnitudes of association with strong statistical significance. Almost equal but opposite in direction.

4. Conclusions

This makes sense. It might even seem obvious. The data demonstrates it clearly.

Relatability is key to engagement with XR.

Fostering a positive image of XR is key to increasing our relatability.

In a context where relatability is key to participation, there is a world of difference between simply making us ‘less unpopular’ and �‘I can relate to those people and what they’re doing’

Disrupting big polluters is less unpopular

(which we already knew, but)

It’s also likely to attract us support, �by making us more relatable.

5. Appendices

On demographics

Age & Gender

• Younger people have a better image of XR, have taken and intend to take more XR-related activities�
• Females have stronger intentions to perform environmental behaviours (general, not XR specific) and have a stronger perception of a social norm of participation in XR �

Ethnicity

• People identifying as black are:
• 10-20% more likely to have participated in XR-related activities
• 6% more likely to intend to engage with XR
• 20% more likely to perceive a social norm of XR participation

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What’s our image? (Cont.)

Because people’s impression of XR members is key to relatability, we asked: In your opinion, what are some typical characteristics of an XR member? (Ie. qualitative analysis)

• “Passionate, ruthless, single minded, although these are probably unfair and probably describe the movement rather than individual members.”
• “Young, enthusiastic”
• “I would imagine that a typical characteristic of an XR member would be stubborn, possibly condescending and unwilling to listen to anyone else's viewpoints.”
• “Middle class, plenty of money, make up, clothes, probably have at least one holiday a year and fly.”
• “courage. determined. opinionated (in a good way!). strong. wide vision for humanity. Political”
• “Unemployed, middle-class, and from hundreds of miles away from where their actions are held.”
• “Either very rich with time to spare or very poor at either end of the scale. Real members are caring and thoughtful and are trying to make very stupid people and selfish governments realise that they are killing the planet.”
• “Typically left-leaning perhaps votes for the Green party. Sometimes a student but there are all ages involved.”
• “Dirty, unwashed.”
• “Passionate, somewhat contrary, rebellious”

Further Questions

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• Could people be made to find us more relatable (by, e.g. a good comms strategy), or is disrupting the average Joe too insurmountable? Put another way: does disruption prevent relatability?�
• Can we do qual analysis of perceptions of members, and correlate this to the rest of our data – particularly around the positive and negative framing of disruption, the “joe public” vs “big business” question�
• Which demographic groups are more and least likely to be ‘activated’ by XR?

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Questions, comments or would like to find out more about the work our circle’s doing?

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Please contact our EC, Callum, on Mattermost (@mercuryuprising), and we’d be happy to help!