The 2020 Census mindsets represent groupings of common attitudes, beliefs, and knowledge about the 2020 Census. These mindsets were created by combining responses from survey questions included in the 2020 Census Barriers, Attitudes, and Motivators Study (CBAMS) Survey. The 2020 Census integrated communications campaign’s researchers identified six mindsets: Eager Engagers, Fence Sitters, Confidentiality Minded, Head Nodders, Wary Skeptics, and Disconnected Doubters (Kulzick et al., 2019). These mindsets described how different segments of the population thought about the decennial census, if they intended to respond to the census, and potential barriers to and motivators for census participation. Researchers used these mindsets as a resource when planning messaging and the communications campaign.  

This evaluation aimed to measure the effect of the 2020 Census communications campaign on 2020 Census mindsets. Some mindsets are more favorable than others toward the census; for example, members of the Eager Engager mindset are very civically engaged, well-informed about the census, and motivated to respond to the census, and reflect how the campaign would want the public to think about the 2020 Census. Alternatively, the Wary Skeptic mindset is characterized by apathy toward the census, having concerns about responding, and being less motivated to participate. Because the 2020 Census campaign was designed to address concerns, educate the public, and motivate people to want to respond, one way to measure the success of the 2020 Census campaign is to see if the proportion of the public with unfavorable mindsets shrank and favorable mindsets grew over the course of the communications campaign. 

To measure mindsets throughout the campaign, analysts administered a modified version the 2020 CBAMS Survey three times. The first survey occurred before the paid advertising campaign began, while the second and the third occurred simultaneously during the height of the campaign. The third was administered to a separate sample to assess whether conditioning effects were influencing responses to the second survey.   

The results from this evaluation found that the overall proportions of each mindset in the population did not change substantially over the course of the campaign, with no mindset growing or shrinking by more than 1.5 percentage points. However, a large number of individuals did change mindsets between the beginning and the height of the campaign. This suggests that it is not uncommon for an individual to move from one mindset to another, but the 2020 Census campaign did not create a collective shift toward the more favorable mindsets in the population over the course of the campaign.  

This evaluation also measured whether different mindsets show different patterns of response behavior. When analysts organized respondents by their mindsets at the timeframe of the second survey (that is, April 21, 2020, to May 11, 2020, the closer of the two surveys to Census Day), they found different patterns of self-response associated with each mindset. The more favorable mindsets (those with higher intent to respond to the 2020 Census, such as Eager Engagers and Fence Sitters) tended to have higher rates of internet self-response, lower rates of mail self-response, and higher total self-response rates during the self-response period (self-responding to the census before the start of Nonresponse Followup) compared to less favorable mindsets. These results indicate that the mindsets are a useful tool in anticipating key differences in response behavior for the general public and in particular, for intent to participate. 

The authors of this evaluation report propose two recommendations for those planning the 2030 Census Communications Campaign: (1) Continue creating and using mindsets for communications planning purposes. (2) Investigate other methods of creating and identifying mindsets to facilitate future research.