What actually changes climate behavior? How do algorithms shape political attitudes? And why does backlash often follow social progress?
Each month we highlight a few recent publications and essays that caught our attention: work that helps illuminate how change happens across climate, behavior, media, and society. Here’s what we’ve been reading in March:
- Voelkel et al., 2026 — A registered report megastudy on the persuasiveness of the most-cited climate messages (Nature Climate Change)
This megastudy finds that several widely cited climate messages produce small but reliable gains in climate attitudes and intentions across partisan groups. However, none increased donations, suggesting short messages alone may be limited in shifting higher-cost behaviors. - Radke et al., 2026 — How do-more-good frames influence climate action likelihood and anticipated happiness (Frontiers in Communication)
Framing climate actions as things people can do more of – rather than behaviors they should do less of – generally increases reported willingness to act and anticipated happiness. The effect varies by behavior and can even backfire for actions like driving or flying. - Gauthier et al., 2026 — The political effects of X’s feed algorithm (Nature)
This study finds that X’s algorithmic feed increased engagement and shifted active U.S. users’ views in a more conservative direction, particularly on policy priorities, Trump investigations, and Ukraine. The shift appears driven partly by promoted conservative content and users subsequently following conservative activist accounts. - Bettache, 2026 — The culture-to-cognition transmission of inequality and the psychological necessity of consciousness-raising (Nature Reviews Psychology)
This review argues that consciousness-raising remains important because harmful cultural norms become internalized in how people think and act. Backlash to these efforts may often reflect disrupted psychological schemas rather than purely political disagreement. - Patel, 2026 — The three things that change the world (Raj Patel on Substack)
In the opening essay for his new Substack, our friend and comrade Raj Patel reflects on three forces that drive meaningful change: witness, friendship, and art. Each requires vulnerability and transformation. Rather than better stories producing change, Raj suggests encounters change people first, and the story follows later, if it comes at all.
What research are you reading lately? Leave us a comment below – we’re always looking to expand our list. And if you found this useful, we’ll be back next month with another roundup.