People’s perception of the long-term future plays an important role in the support for policies that address intergenerational challenges such as climate change, nuclear waste storage and technological risks. Yet, many people find it difficult to think about the future beyond their own lifespan. This experiment explores how good are people’s grasp of the long-term rather than short-term future, whether this understanding related to own remaining life expectancy and if this understanding depends on whether its measurement is framed in a specific context such as climate change.
Respondents were asked one or both of two sets questions. One set of questions focused on interest compounding and the other on rising seas levels. Each set had a one-sentence introduction and three follow-up questions. Questions each asked about the compounding impacts at 5, 30, and 100 year time spans. All questions asked about compounding at 1% per year.
There are two dimensions to this experiment: the placement of the questions and which set of questions were asked. The questions were placed in the early and late CASI sections. Respondents were randomly allocated to be asked either the 1) financial numeracy questions, 2) environmental numeracy questions, or 3) both sets. They were also randomly allocated to answer these questions early or late in the questionnaire. Those asked both sets received one (random) set early, and the other late.
There are two allocations controlling this experiment, both were allocated at the household level and stratified by ff_climatechangew16, sample origin, wave 16 mode allocation, and wave 16 incentive treatment allocation. The treatment allocation variables are in file p_hhsamp_ip:
ff_numeracyw16 (1/2 each)
1 = Environmental questions early/financial questions late
2 = Financial questions early/environmental questions late
ff_numquesw16(0.4/0.4/0.2 allocation)
1 = Ask financial questions only
2 = Ask environmental questions only
3 = Ask both financial and environmental questions
The variables affected by this experiment are in file p_indresp_ip:
envnumear5y, envnumear30y, envnumear100y, finnumear5y, finnumear30y, finnumear100y, envnumlat5y, envnumlat30y, envnumlat100y, finnumlat5y, finnumlat30y, finnumlat100y
