“A Statistically Representative Climate Change Debate”: Satirical Television News, Scientific Consensus, and Public Perceptions of Global Warming

Brewer, Paul R.; McKnight, Jessica

doi:10.1080/15456870.2017.1324453

Cited by 73 publications

(69 citation statements)

References 32 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Scientific information influences the individuals' beliefs through their perceptions of scientific consensus. There is growing evidence for the tenets of this model (Brewer & McKnight, 2017;Cook & Lewandowsky, 2016;Dixon, 2016;van der Linden, Clarke, & Maibach, 2015;van der Linden, Leiserowitz, et al, 2015). For example, Dixon and Clarke (2013b) found that exposure to both positive and negative views on the link between autism and vaccination (compared with exposure to only a negative view) increased individuals' perceptions of a divide among medical experts about the issue, and this in turn heightened their uncertainty about the autism-vaccination link.…”

Section: Belief Polarization and Science Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of conflicting scientific arguments on belief change: Argument evaluation and expert consensus perception as mediators

Kobayashi

2018

J Applied Social Pyschol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In our society, people are often exposed to conflicting information about a scientific issue. However, our knowledge about the effects of exposure to conflicting scientific information is still highly limited. By combining paradigms of research on belief polarization and science communication, two experiments examined whether and how exposure to conflicting scientific arguments influences scientific belief change and behavioral intentions. Participants (Experiment 1, N = 102; Experiment 2, N = 115) received two conflicting arguments (favorable and unfavorable to the effects of vitamin C supplementation on the prevention and treatment of the common cold) or two nonconflicting arguments (unfavorable to and neutral on the vitamin C supplementation effects). Exposure to conflicting arguments changed participants' beliefs about the preventing and treating effects of vitamin C supplementation less than exposure to nonconflicting arguments but did not cause actual belief polarization. Compared with participants who received nonconflicting arguments, those who received conflicting arguments perceived the quality of unfavorable argument to be low and experts' opinions about the issues to be divided, resulting in modest belief change. Exposure to conflicting arguments also promoted the formation of moderate behavioral intentions to take a regular high dose of vitamin C as a result of the belief change.

show abstract

Section: Belief Polarization and Science Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of conflicting scientific arguments on belief change: Argument evaluation and expert consensus perception as mediators

Kobayashi

2018

J Applied Social Pyschol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Multiple studies find that communicating the scientific consensus on climate change shifts people’s perception of that consensus (Brewer & McKnight, ; van der Linden, Leiserowitz, Feinberg, & Maibach, ; van der Linden, Leiserowitz, & Maibach, ). This is important because people’s understanding of the scientific consensus has significant downstream consequences.…”

Section: Gateway Belief Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, research on the GBM finds that communicating the scientific consensus on climate change shifts people’s perception of the consensus (see Bolsen & Druckman, ; Brewer & McKnight, ; Chinn, Lane, & Hart, ; Cook & Lewandowsky, ; Cook, Lewandowsky, & Ecker, ; Deryugina & Shurchkov, ; Dixon, ; Harris, Sildmäe, Speekenbrink, & Hahn, ; Kerr & Wilson, ; Kobayashi, ; Lewandowsky et al, ; Myers et al, ; van der Linden, Leiserowitz et al, ; van der Linden, Leiserowitz, Rosenthal, & Maibach, ; van der Linden et al, ). Interestingly, although some interventions have generated “boomerang” effects (Hart & Nisbet, ), consensus messaging reduces motivated cognition by converging partisan perceptions toward the scientific norm (Cook et al, ; Lewandowsky et al, ; van der Linden, Leiserowitz et al, ; van der Linden et al, ; Zhang et al, ).…”

Section: Gateway Belief Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, research on the GBM finds that communicating the scientific consensus on climate change shifts people's perception of the consensus (see Bolsen & Druckman, 2018;Brewer & McKnight, 2017;Chinn, Lane, & Hart, 2018;Cook & Lewandowsky, 2016;Cook, Lewandowsky, & Ecker, 2017;Deryugina & Shurchkov, 2016;Dixon, 2016;Harris, Sildmäe, Speekenbrink, & Hahn, 2018;Kerr & Wilson, 2018;Kobayashi, 2018a;Lewandowsky et al, 2013;Myers et al, 2015;van der Linden, Leiserowitz et al, 2015;van der Linden, Leiserowitz, Rosenthal, & Maibach, 2017;van der Linden et al, 2018).…”

Section: G Ate Way B Elief Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The role of anchoring in judgments about expert consensus

Goldberg

Linden

Ballew

et al. 2019

J Applied Social Pyschol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recent scholarship finds that communicating descriptive norms, such as the fact that 97% of climate scientists have concluded that human‐caused climate change is happening, is an effective gateway to changing individuals’ beliefs and attitudes about climate change and support for climate policies. Other scholars, however, have offered an alternative explanation: priming people with any “97%” figure serves as an anchoring heuristic that leads people to adjust their estimates of the scientific consensus. This study investigates this proposed anchoring effect. Results from three parallel experiments indicate that participants consistently update their perceptions of the scientific consensus when they receive a relevant statement about the scientific consensus on climate change, but not when receiving a semantically equivalent but otherwise irrelevant consensus cue that might be used as an anchor. Further, we find that perceived consensus mediates the effect of the consensus treatment on individuals’ attitudes. We also find that conservatives updated their consensus estimates significantly more than liberals. We replicate these results across three large samples from different sources (Total N = 3,132). These findings indicate that when people update their estimates of the scientific consensus, it reflects a genuine update in their beliefs and is unlikely to be a result of the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. This work contributes to a growing literature on the value of communicating expert consensus about contested scientific issues.

show abstract

“…For example, in discussing Bolsen and Druckman [2017], Kahan [2017] fails to mention key conclusions such as; "The gateway model's mediational predictions are supported" [p. 13], or "a scientific consensus statement leads all partisan subgroups to increase their perception of a scientific consensus" [p. 14]. Similarly, although not cited by Kahan [2017], Brewer and McKnight [2017] find independent support for the Gateway Belief Model (GBM)'s mediational hypotheses, as does Dixon [2016] in the context of GMO's. Cook and Lewandowsky [2016] indeed found negative effects (but only for their US sample) and among a subset of respondents characterized as extreme free-market endorsers.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Gateway illusion or cultural cognition confusion?

Linden¹,

Leiserowitz²,

Maibach³

2017

JCOM

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this paper, we respond to the critiques presented by [Kahan, 2017]. Contrary to claims that the scientific consensus message did not significantly influence the key mediator and outcome variables in our model, we show that the experiment in [van der Linden et al., 2015] did in fact directly influence key beliefs about climate change. We also clarify that the Gateway Belief Model (GBM) is theoretically well-specified, empirically sound, and as hypothesized, the consensus message exerts a significant indirect influence on support for public action through the mediating variables. We support our conclusions with a large-scale replication.

show abstract

“A Statistically Representative Climate Change Debate”: Satirical Television News, Scientific Consensus, and Public Perceptions of Global Warming

Cited by 73 publications

References 32 publications

Effects of conflicting scientific arguments on belief change: Argument evaluation and expert consensus perception as mediators

Effects of conflicting scientific arguments on belief change: Argument evaluation and expert consensus perception as mediators

The role of anchoring in judgments about expert consensus

Gateway illusion or cultural cognition confusion?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About