Six minutes to promote change: People, not facts, alter students' perceptions on climate change

Sauer, Kodiak A.; Capps, Daniel K.; Jackson, David; Capps, Krista A.

doi:10.1002/ece3.7553

Cited by 65 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…Partisan evaluations of FFs do not simply reflect an evaluative charitability extended to members of the perceivers in-group (e.g., Valdesolo & DeSteno, 2007), nor do they simply reflect the excusing of actions that could benefit the in-group. Given that elite political figures can have more potential to shape their own side's positions and beliefs than do nonpolitical subject matter experts (e.g., Sauer et al, 2021), then the partisan reluctance to condemn policy FFs may contribute to misinformation and division among the electorate.…”

Section: Political Falsehoodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who sees which political falsehoods as more acceptable and why: A new look at in-group loyalty and trustworthiness.

Galak¹,

Critcher²

2023

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

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Many politicians—even those who occupy some of the most powerful offices in the world—lie. Five studies examined how conservative and liberal Americans responded to media reports of politicians’ falsehoods—that is, flagged falsehoods (FFs). Even accounting for partisan biases in how much participants dismissed such reports as fake news and assumed that such lies were unintentional, we consistently observed partisan evaluations in how much FFs were seen as justifiable: Republicans and Democrats alike saw their own party’s FFs as more acceptable (Studies 1–4). This charitability did not reflect unconditional in-group favoritism. Instead, it was strongest for policy FFs—those meant to advance a party’s explicit agenda—as opposed to personal FFs about a politician’s past (Study 2) or electoral FFs that strayed from parties’ explicit goals by aiming to disenfranchise legally eligible voters (Study 4). Although FFs can undermine general trustworthiness in the eyes of both in-group and out-group members, policy FFs in particular signal partisan trustworthiness (Studies 3–5)—the belief that a politician can be trusted by their own political side and not by the other. For likeminded partisans, such partisan trustworthiness predicted not only the perceived acceptability of FFs, but also perceptions of the politician as a more prototypically moral actor, even outside of the political sphere. These findings validate the importance of our dual conception of trustworthiness in intergroup contexts.

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Section: Political Falsehoodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who sees which political falsehoods as more acceptable and why: A new look at in-group loyalty and trustworthiness.

Galak¹,

Critcher²

2023

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

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“…Van der Linden et al's (2015) findings have been challenged, in particular the authors' data analysis and conclusions (Kahan, 2017), criticisms which the original authors have responded to (van der Linden et al, 2017). Some researchers have argued that communicating consensus entrenches rather than updates already-held beliefs, or creates a 'backfire' effect (Sauer et al, 2021;van der Linden et al, 2017).…”

Section: Empirical Evidence For the Gateway Belief Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Communicating the scientific consensus on climate change: A preregistered test of the gateway belief model with a one-week time delay

Beynen¹,

Williams²

2023

Preprint

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While the scientific community almost unanimously agrees on the reality of anthropogenic climate change, public attitudes and beliefs lag behind. One intervention proposed to close this gap is informing the public of the high level of consensus among climate scientists. This has been incorporated into the gateway belief model, which suggests that consensus messaging increases perceived scientific consensus (PSC), thought to impact belief in human-caused climate change, worry about the issue and support for action. The present study narrowly tested aspects of the gateway belief model, specifically the effects of consensus messaging on PSC and belief in human-caused climate change, using a two-part experimental design. Follow-up measures were taken after one week to see if the effects of consensus messaging were lower after this time delay. Participants were recruited on prolific.co from the United States, with a final sample size of 659. Results showed consensus messaging had a positive effect on PSC and belief in climate change. Results also showed that after one week, consensus messaging effects were smaller. While this study found support for the gateway belief model, high pretest scores may have led to ceiling effects. The finding that consensus messaging effects were lower after one week suggests further exploration is needed on the longevity of consensus messaging. Communicating consensus is a promising intervention and could be expanded to include elements such as education and social consensus, and more understanding is needed on how consensus messaging functions in real-world settings.

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“…This sample thus represents a relatively small portion of the population; however, it is deemed adequate for analysis because our questionnaires are more comprehensive than those typically used in other studies. We utilized methods developed by Walker et al (2017) and later refined by Sauer et al (2021) for our study on responder determinants. We chose three environmental-related products emphasizing environmental literacy (i.e., knowledge, attitude, and behavior).…”

Section: Field Investigationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, many believe that their opinions, attitudes, and beliefs are sufficiently malleable to change if they are presented with new information (Mao et al, 2018). Consequently, providing additional knowledge effectively addresses misconceptions and poor attitudes and promotes acceptable behavior (Sauer et al, 2021). Previous research has demonstrated that those who understand the underlying causes of environmental illiteracy are more likely to believe that human actions contribute to the decline of riparian areas (Lee et al, 2015; Zheng, Arif, et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Consequently, providing additional knowledge effectively addresses misconceptions and poor attitudes and promotes acceptable behavior (Sauer et al, 2021). Previous research has demonstrated that those who understand the underlying causes of environmental illiteracy are more likely to believe that human actions contribute to the decline of riparian areas (Lee et al, 2015;.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Environmental literacy scenarios lead to land degradation and changes in riparian zones: Implications for policy in China

Arif

Tahir³

et al. 2022

Land Degrad Dev

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Environmental illiteracy threatens ecosystem functions globally, however, many continue to deny its existence. Knowledge deficit theory suggests that suspicions will decrease once officials and the public are presented with new facts. Despite extensive worldwide initiatives to improve riparian buffer zones, there is minimal evidence about the impact of environmental literacy metrics (ELMs) on riparian zone components (RZCs) across different land-use types (i.e., rural, rural-urban transitional, and urban regions) within the riparian zones of dams and reservoirs. In this study, multiple statistical techniques were used to explore the extent of impacts on a 58,000 km 2 area within China's Three Gorges Dam Reservoir (TGDR) area/region in 2019. Network visualization investigated RZC themes, such as plant cover, regeneration, exotics, erosion, habitat, and stresses, based on 5326 articles published over the past 121 years. Our analysis revealed the greatest lack of information regarding ELM (e.g., knowledge, attitude, and behaviour) among the general public, which, in turn, had the greatest impact on the components of plant cover in transitional regions and the least impact on regeneration in rural areas. Furthermore, the ELMs of local people had the most significant effect on RZCs, with Pearson correlation values ranging from À0.79 < r < 0.98 throughout the TGDR. In contrast, the ELM of government employees correlated more strongly with RZCs (À0.70 < r < 0.92) in transitional and rural areas. Comparatively, exposed soil, understory cover, and environmentally unfriendly activities, including pollution, were the most significant RZCs within the TGDR. Based on hierarchical methods, RZCs and ELMs differed significantly between land-use categories. RZCs near dams and reservoirs exhibit many differences; thus, land-use initiatives are required to raise awareness of their global impacts. K E Y W O R D S ecosystem services, land-use and land-cover change, local knowledge, quantitative attribution, Three Gorges Dam and Reservoir area/region, Yangtze River 1 | INTRODUCTION Environmental scientists consistently encourage both individuals and governments to embrace innovative policies (Basupi et al., 2019; Díaz et al., 2019; Wu & Kim, 2021) and advocate the benefits of clean production (Blake Cook & Overpeck, 2019;Zafra-Calvo et al., 2020). 'Clean production' refers to manufacturing processes that minimize environmental impacts through production process changes. The impacts of human activities cause significant damage to riparian buffer areas; thus, conservationists argue that the

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Six minutes to promote change: People, not facts, alter students' perceptions on climate change

Abstract: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Cited by 65 publications

References 56 publications

Who sees which political falsehoods as more acceptable and why: A new look at in-group loyalty and trustworthiness.

Who sees which political falsehoods as more acceptable and why: A new look at in-group loyalty and trustworthiness.

Communicating the scientific consensus on climate change: A preregistered test of the gateway belief model with a one-week time delay

Environmental literacy scenarios lead to land degradation and changes in riparian zones: Implications for policy in China

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