Consumer Misperceptions about the Sources of Societal Problems

Consumers face pressing societal problems, from climate change to the opioid epidemic. This paper offers a broad descriptive analysis of consumers’ beliefs about the composition of such problems and investigates how correcting misperceptions alters cause support. Pairing survey experiments with government data (N=6,812), we observe misperceptions about the prevalence of the sources of six problems: gun deaths (e.g., % from rifles vs. handguns), carbon emissions, mass incarceration, opioid overdoses, unauthorized immigration, and unemployment. Correcting these misperceptions increases support for addressing sources that were initially underestimated and decreases support for sources that were initially overestimated. These effects are not fully explained by efficacy beliefs; even when consumers receive explicit information about where their support would have a larger impact, prevalence information still shifts preferences. Rather, the findings suggest consumers hold normative beliefs that society ought to allocate resources to more prevalent sources. We also show how consumers’ political affiliation predicts who holds misperceptions and whose support is most sensitive to belief corrections. We close by discussing how charity platforms and policymakers can influence consumer cause support by disseminating public, reliable data on the composition of societal problems.