TY - JOUR
T1 - A 27-country test of communicating the scientific consensus on climate change
AU - Većkalov, Bojana
AU - Geiger, Sandra J
AU - Bartoš, František
AU - White, Mathew P
AU - Rutjens, Bastiaan T
AU - van Harreveld, Frenk
AU - Stablum, Federica
AU - Akın, Berkan
AU - Aldoh, Alaa
AU - Bai, Jinhao
AU - Berglund, Frida
AU - Bratina Zimic, Aleša
AU - Broyles, Margaret
AU - Catania, Andrea
AU - Chen, Airu
AU - Chorzępa, Magdalena
AU - Farahat, Eman
AU - Götz, Jakob
AU - Hoter-Ishay, Bat
AU - Jordan, Gesine
AU - Joustra, Siri
AU - Klingebiel, Jonas
AU - Krajnc, Živa
AU - Krug, Antonia
AU - Andersen, Thomas Lind
AU - Löloff, Johanna
AU - Natarajan, Divya
AU - Newman-Oktan, Sasha
AU - Niehoff, Elena
AU - Paerels, Celeste
AU - Papirmeister, Rachel
AU - Peregrina, Steven
AU - Pohl, Felicia
AU - Remsö, Amanda
AU - Roh, Abigail
AU - Rusyidi, Binahayati
AU - Schmidt, Justus
AU - Shavgulidze, Mariam
AU - Vellinho Nardin, Valentina
AU - Wang, Ruixiang
AU - Warner, Kelly
AU - Wattier, Miranda
AU - Wong, Chloe Y
AU - Younssi, Mariem
AU - Ruggeri, Kai
AU - van der Linden, Sander
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank the Junior Researcher Programme, the Global Behavioral Science (GLOBES) coordinators from Undergraduate Global Engagement at Columbia University and the Centre for Business Research in the Judge Business School as well as Corpus Christi College at the University of Cambridge. We also thank the Rationale Altruisten Mannheim e.V. and the University of Luxembourg. We would like to thank C. Akil and D. M\u0131sra G\u00FCrol for assistance in instrument adaptation, A. Heske and S. H\u00F6rberg for developing the filler task and for helping to implement the pilot study in Qualtrics, as well as A. van Stekelenburg and E. Maibach for useful feedback on an earlier draft of this manuscript. Computational resources were provided by the e-INFRA CZ project (ID:90140, F.B.), supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic. This project received funding from an internal small expenses budget from the Social Psychology Program, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, University of Amsterdam (B.R.); Columbia University\u2019s Office for Undergraduate Globe Education (K.R.); and the National Science Foundation, Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (no. 2218595, K.R.). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2024.
PY - 2024/10
Y1 - 2024/10
N2 - Communicating the scientific consensus that human-caused climate change is real increases climate change beliefs, worry and support for public action in the United States. In this preregistered experiment, we tested two scientific consensus messages, a classic message on the reality of human-caused climate change and an updated message additionally emphasizing scientific agreement that climate change is a crisis. Across online convenience samples from 27 countries (n = 10,527), the classic message substantially reduces misperceptions (d = 0.47, 95% CI (0.41, 0.52)) and slightly increases climate change beliefs (from d = 0.06, 95% CI (0.01, 0.11) to d = 0.10, 95% CI (0.04, 0.15)) and worry (d = 0.05, 95% CI (-0.01, 0.10)) but not support for public action directly. The updated message is equally effective but provides no added value. Both messages are more effective for audiences with lower message familiarity and higher misperceptions, including those with lower trust in climate scientists and right-leaning ideologies. Overall, scientific consensus messaging is an effective, non-polarizing tool for changing misperceptions, beliefs and worry across different audiences.
AB - Communicating the scientific consensus that human-caused climate change is real increases climate change beliefs, worry and support for public action in the United States. In this preregistered experiment, we tested two scientific consensus messages, a classic message on the reality of human-caused climate change and an updated message additionally emphasizing scientific agreement that climate change is a crisis. Across online convenience samples from 27 countries (n = 10,527), the classic message substantially reduces misperceptions (d = 0.47, 95% CI (0.41, 0.52)) and slightly increases climate change beliefs (from d = 0.06, 95% CI (0.01, 0.11) to d = 0.10, 95% CI (0.04, 0.15)) and worry (d = 0.05, 95% CI (-0.01, 0.10)) but not support for public action directly. The updated message is equally effective but provides no added value. Both messages are more effective for audiences with lower message familiarity and higher misperceptions, including those with lower trust in climate scientists and right-leaning ideologies. Overall, scientific consensus messaging is an effective, non-polarizing tool for changing misperceptions, beliefs and worry across different audiences.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85202047386&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41562-024-01928-2
DO - 10.1038/s41562-024-01928-2
M3 - Article
C2 - 39187712
SN - 2397-3374
VL - 8
SP - 1892
EP - 1905
JO - Nature Human Behaviour
JF - Nature Human Behaviour
IS - 10
ER -
