Staying over-optimistic about the future: Uncovering attentional biases to climate change messages

Abstract

For more information, including our policy and submission procedure, please contact the Repository Team at: usir@salford.ac.uk. AbstractThere is considerable concern that the public are not getting the message about climate change. One possible explanation is 'optimism bias', where individuals overestimate the likelihood of positive events happening to them and underestimate the likelihood of negative events. Evidence from behavioural neuroscience suggest that this bias is underpinned by selective information processing, specifically through a reduced level of neural coding of undesirable information, and an unconscious tendency for optimists to avoid fixating negative information. Here we test how this bias in attention could relate to the processing of climate change messages. Using eye tracking, we found that level of dispositional optimism affected visual fixations on climate change messages. Optimists spent less time (overall dwell time) attending to any arguments about climate changes (either 'for' or 'against') with substantially shorter individual fixations on aspects of arguments for climate change, i.e. those that reflect the scientific consensus but are bad news. We also found that when asked to summarise what they had read, non-optimists were more likely to frame their recall in terms of the arguments 'for' climate change; optimists were significantly more likely to frame it in terms of a debate between two opposing positions. Those highest in dispositional optimism seemeed to have the strongest and most pronounced level of optimism bias when it came to estimating the probability of being personally affected by climate change. We discuss the importance of overcoming this cognitive bias to develop more effective strategies for communicating about climate change.

When Beliefs Face Reality: An Integrative Review of Belief Updating in Mental Health and Illness

“…Specifically, one study using eye tracking found that people with high trait optimism spent significantly less time attending to any information related to climate change, with particularly low fixation times if the arguments about climate change conveyed “bad news” (Beattie, Marselle, McGuire, & Litchfield, 2017). The authors also found that people with high dispositional optimism more likely recalled the arguments in terms of a debate between two opposing positions (as opposed to framing it as clear evidence) and were more confident that the consequences of climate change would not affect them personally (Beattie et al, 2017). Likewise, a study applying the belief-updating framework to information about climate change demonstrated that people who do not believe in the concept of man-made climate change updated their beliefs more toward good news (suggesting that the global rise of the average temperature may not be as dramatic as predicted) than toward bad news (suggesting that the global rise of the average temperature is even more dramatic than predicted; Sunstein, Bobadilla-Suarez, Lazzaro, & Sharot, 2017).…”

“…Some evidence suggests that this, in addition to various other factors, may be due to the optimistic bias when confronted with bad news. Specifically, one study using eye tracking found that people with high trait optimism spent significantly less time attending to any information related to climate change, with particularly low fixation times if the arguments about climate change conveyed "bad news" (Beattie, Marselle, McGuire, & Litchfield, 2017). The authors also found that people with high dispositional optimism more likely recalled the arguments in terms of a debate between two opposing positions (as opposed to framing it as clear evidence) and were more confident that the consequences of climate change would not affect them personally (Beattie et al, 2017).…”

Can the negative footprint illusion be eliminated by summative priming?

“…However, more research is urgently required to determine the amenability of thought processes to change (e.g. the correction of biases) as evidence suggests that the acceleration of climate change can be reinforced by a collection of different psychological phenomena, including the single action bias (Weber, 1997), optimism bias (Beattie et al, 2017), moral licensing effects (Klöckner et al, 2013), rebound effects (Binswanger, 2001) and the negative footprint illusion (Gorissen & Weijters, 2016;Holmgren et al, 2018b;Kabanshi, 2020).…”

Harnessing social listening to explore consumer cognitive bias: implications for upstream social marketing

“…Some cognitive biases have been found to influence humans to accept or deny climate change. This ranges from Optimism bias (the over estimation of positive events happening - Beattie et al, 2017) to Loss aversion (the idea that protecting against losses is more important that acquiring equivalent gains -Bowman, 2011), and Perception biases (the limitation to process information about events that have not yet happened -Mazutis and Eckardt, 2017).…”

“…While different cognitive biases have been investigated as prerequisites to (not) act on climate change, poor communication styles and argumentation were also found to be relevant factors that could undermine effective action in this context (Johnson and Levin, 2009). Hence, social scientists have started to research different methods to overcome cognitive biases to achieve more effective communication strategies regarding climate change (Beattie et al, 2017). Bowman (2011) noted that policy on climate change stands a better chance of success if cognitive biases are taken into account when formulating and communicating policy.…”