An Examination of Expertise, Caring and Salient Value Similarity as Source Factors that Garner Support for Advocated Climate Policies

Geiger, Nathaniel; Sarge, Melanie A.; Comfort, Ryan N.

doi:10.1080/17524032.2022.2080242

Cited by 10 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 103 publications

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“…Similarly, when comparing people's views of an advocating vs non-advocating climate scientist, Cologna et al [77] found that the scientist who openly advocated for stronger climate policy was more likely to be seen as acting in the interest of society than the non-advocating scientist, even though there were no differences in the overall credibility scores between the two scientists. Perceptions that a climate policy advocate cares about people like oneself has been found to increase policy support, while information about their expertise did not [80]. This corroborates the importance of distinguishing between different dimensions of trustworthiness (i.e., competence, integrity, benevolence, openness) when assessing trust in scientists [20].…”

Section: Effects Of Political Engagement By Climate Scientists On Trustmentioning

confidence: 57%

Trust in climate science and climate scientists: A narrative review

Cologna,

Kotcher,

Mede

et al. 2024

PLOS Clim

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Trust in climate science provides the foundation for evidence-based policymaking on climate change mitigation and adaptation and public perceptions of the urgency of climate change. Here we consider the possibility that lack of public trust in climate science and climate scientists may undermine the effectiveness of climate science communication. To this end, we narratively review three topics of relevance to climate science and climate scientists: 1) The current state of trust; 2) Reasons for distrust; 3) How political engagement affects trust. We then draw on insights from communication and behavioral science to recommend how climate change communicators can become more trustworthy.

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Section: Effects Of Political Engagement By Climate Scientists On Trustmentioning

confidence: 57%

Trust in climate science and climate scientists: A narrative review

Cologna,

Kotcher,

Mede

et al. 2024

PLOS Clim

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Similarly, when comparing people's views of an advocating vs non-advocating climate scientist, found that the scientist who openly advocated for stronger climate policy was more likely to be seen as acting in the interest of society than the non-advocating scientist, even though there were no differences in the overall credibility scores between the two scientists. Perceptions that a climate policy advocate cares about people like oneself has been found to increase policy support, while information about their expertise did not (Geiger et al, 2022). This corroborates the importance of distinguishing between different dimensions of trustworthiness (i.e., competence, integrity, benevolence, openness) when assessing trust in scientists (Besley et al, 2021).…”

Section: Effects Of Political Engagement By Climate Scientists On Trustmentioning

confidence: 57%

Trust in climate science and climate scientists: A narrative review

Cologna,

Kotcher,

Mede

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Trust in climate science provides the foundation for evidence-based policymaking on climate change mitigation and adaptation. If the IPCC and climate scientists are right, global decarbonization should be one of humanity’s top priorities. Yet, most countries are not on track to meet the emissions reduction goal ratified under the Paris Agreement and strategies to meet this goal are lacking. Here we consider the possibility that lack of public trust in climate science and climate scientists may undermine the effectiveness of climate science communication. To this end, we qualitatively review three topics of relevance to climate science and climate scientists: 1) The current state of trust; 2) Reasons for distrust; 3) How political engagement affects trust. We then draw on insights from social science research to recommend how climate change communicators can become more trustworthy.

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“…Our review demonstrates that most studies on this topic recruited student or general population samples; few recruited groups already engaged with climate change (e.g., activists; farmers). Our review also highlights that most published work on this topic has sampled participants from the Global North (i.e., wealthier countries with higher education levels, who tend to be relatively less impacted by climate change), and especially the United States, a country which in some ways is a global outlier regarding climate change views ( Geiger et al, 2022a ), which reflects field-wide systematic biases ( Comfort and Park, 2018 ; Tam et al, 2021 ). Additionally, despite our systematic screening and selection process, given our search’s interdisciplinary nature, we likely missed some relevant articles.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hopium or empowering hope? A meta-analysis of hope and climate engagement

Geiger,

Dwyer,

Swim

2023

Front. Psychol.

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Researchers are increasingly examining whether hope can motivate action on climate change, or conversely, whether it might demotivate such action. We present a meta-analysis (k = 46) of quantitative studies examining the relationships between measures and manipulations of hope with climate engagement. On average, measured hope was associated with greater climate engagement (r = 0.18); however, this effect differed based on the target of hope. Hope regarding the possibility of respondents taking action was particularly strongly associated with greater engagement (r = 0.40), while in contrast, hope grounded in climate change not being a problem was associated with less engagement (r = −0.40). Hope in response to climate change generally, and domain-general hope, were only weakly associated with greater engagement (rs = 0.13, 0.20). On average, hope manipulations fostered increased engagement, though the increase was small (Cohen’s d = 0.08). Subgroup analyses suggested two promising types of hope manipulations warranting future research: personal efficacy (k = 2, d = 0.18) and in-depth (k = 2, d = 0.49). In contrast, messages suggesting societal efficacy (i.e., providing a sense of possibility that climate change could be addressed) did not significantly or substantially boost (nor discourage) engagement (d = 0.05), and status quo-framed messages (i.e., messages highlighting that environmental conditions could stay the same if climate action is taken) had a marginally significant negative effect on engagement (d = −0.18). After excluding a single outlier, the extent to which manipulations increased hope were not correlated with increases in climate engagement, suggesting the possibility that hope might be incidental to the success of some manipulations rather than a necessary component for promoting engagement. Overall, our meta-analysis does not suggest that increasing hope decreases climate engagement, with the possible exceptions of denial hope and status quo framed messages. Conversely, however, results provide partial yet inconclusive evidence for the hypothesis that increasing hope increases climate engagement. Given the existing published literature, we argue that future researchers should consider study designs that align with theoretical perspectives on how hope promotes climate engagement (e.g., longitudinal designs) and also consider directly assessing populations of interest (e.g., climate activists).

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An Examination of Expertise, Caring and Salient Value Similarity as Source Factors that Garner Support for Advocated Climate Policies

Cited by 10 publications

References 103 publications

Trust in climate science and climate scientists: A narrative review

Trust in climate science and climate scientists: A narrative review

Trust in climate science and climate scientists: A narrative review

Hopium or empowering hope? A meta-analysis of hope and climate engagement

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