Individual perceptions of climate anomalies and collective action : evidence from an artefactual field experiment in Malaysian Borneo

We explore the effect of individual perceptions of climate anomalies on collective action within a context of environmental complexity and uncertainty. To do so, we construct two competing propositions that are theoretically robust but with very different real-world implications. Our first proposition suggests that collective action to adapt to climate change is likely to be more effective when perceptions of climate anomalies converge within a community. Our second proposition suggests the opposite: that convergence is likely to hinder adaptation behaviour. We use a community co-designed measure of perceptions and an artefactual field experiment to test our propositions and explore the effect of perception convergence on climate change adaptation behaviour in six communities in Malaysian Borneo. We find a robust positive relationship between convergent perceptions of climate anomalies and the collective action required to adapt to climate change. Our findings suggest that perception convergence is an underexplored and potentially crucial factor that can either drive or hinder adaptation efforts at the community-level.