As part of their joint project Culture and Sustainability, Katharina Hartinger (University of Mainz) and Lennard Zyska (Leibniz University Hannover) conducted a survey in the United States in November 2025. The aim of the study is to better understand how cultural backgrounds, regional identities, and institutional contexts shape environmental attitudes, sustainable behavior, and support for climate policy.
The survey captures regional variation across urban and rural areas as well as socioeconomic groups. To enhance response quality and approximate real decision-making, the study incorporated an incentive mechanism: For two randomly selected participants, the donation decision was implemented after the completion of data collection—with a possible donation of up to 50 USD.
One of the selected donations was made to the Waterkeeper Alliance, an organization dedicated to “protecting and securing clean waterways” (donation receipt). The other randomly selected participant had chosen not to donate.
