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To achieve rapid, widespread voluntary behavior change for climate change mitigation and other pro-social causes, an increasing number of studies have demonstrated the value of relational organizing. Relational organizing involves enlisting motivated individuals to encourage others they know to engage in a desired behavior. We developed messaging interventions that targeted the social-psychological variables associated with participation in relational organizing to promote a climate action, specifically encouraging others to eat a plant-forward diet. We conducted an online experiment with a between-subjects design, testing one intervention (message treatments) that had six levels (five treatments and one control). Of the five treatments, four increased participants’ contemplation of (intentions to engage in) relational organizing: 1) confidence engaging in plant-based eating, 2) supportive social norms for plant-based eating and relational organizing, 3) personal relational organizing aptitude, and 4) perceived relational organizing hypocrisy and self-efficacy. However, these treatments did not increase our outcome measure at the next stage of change (preparation), which is indicative of the numerous contextual variables that can inhibit relational organizing. We discuss the implications of our results for interventions aimed at scaling pro-climate actions such as plant-based eating. 

Abstract Why do (or do not) people encourage others in their social networks to adopt climate-friendly behaviors? Encouragement like this has been referred to as “relational organizing,” and can help scale up climate action across communities. Since relational organizing is a social behavior, it likely has its own specific barriers and motivations beyond what affects personal climate action. Food is a big part of our day-to-day lives and our relationships with people we care about. It also impacts the climate, ecosystems, animal welfare, and our own health. As such, people’s climate-friendly food choices provide an ideal case study to explore drivers of relational organizing. Using an online survey with two North American samples of motivated audiences (one US-wide animal advocacy community,N = 1166, and one environmentally focused community in Boulder, Colorado,N = 363), we sought to identify and categorize the social–psychological barriers to and drivers of relational organizing for climate-friendly food choices. Using exploratory factor analysis and predictive models, we found that self-efficacy in carrying out the personal behavior, response efficacy beliefs, supportive social norms, and personal aptitude in relational organizing (e.g., personal norms) predicted relational organizing action after the survey. People’s sense of personal obligation to engage in relational organizing (i.e., personal norms), beliefs that would make a difference to important causes (i.e. response efficacy), and social identity beliefs around activism were particularly important. We discuss how these findings can help inform interventions related to climate-friendly diets, and what this means more broadly for how relational organizing can support climate action.