Numeracy does not polarize climate change judgments: Numerate people are more knowledgeable and knowledge is power.

Abstract

Statistical numeracy skills have been found to be among the most robust general predictors of risk understanding and decision-making quality. However, some research suggests that when numerate people hold extreme worldviews they could use their skills to engage in motivated (biased) reasoning about controversial topics like climate change, further polarizing their judgments and beliefs. While suggestive, previous numeracy studies on this topic have neglected the highly influential role of knowledge in skilled judgment and decision making (see Skilled Decision Theory; Cokely et al., 2018). To address this limit, we conducted two studies with diverse (n = 537) and probabilistically representative samples (n = 305) of U.S. residents, testing the first integrated cognitive model of the relations between numeracy, worldviews, knowledge, beliefs, and risk perceptions. Structural modeling revealed that regardless of people’s worldviews, numeracy was not associated with polarization or enhanced bias. However, numeracy was consistently related to more accurate climate change knowledge, which was by far the strongest predictor of accurate beliefs (e.g., 6–10 times stronger than people’s worldviews), largely mediating the associations between worldviews and risk perceptions (e.g., individualists were less informed and less concerned about climate change). Consistent with the risk literacy Knowledge is Power account, results suggest that when accurate risk knowledge is available numeracy skills may generally promote more informed and therefore less biased judgment and decision making, even when people are confronted with controversies and conflicts of interest.

Younger Americans are less politically polarized than older Americans about climate policies (but not about other policy domains)

“…For example, one nationally representative survey of Americans in 2009 found that, for liberals, greater knowledge about climate change was associated with heightened support for climate mitigation policies, whereas the opposite association was found in conservatives [27]. The evidence base for scientific literacy leading to motivated reasoning about climate policy is mixed, however [26], including two nationally representative U.S. studies reporting null effects for motivated reasoning as a driver of climate policy polarization [28,29].…”