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The Scientific Consensus on Climate change as a Gateway Belief: Experimental Evidence

• Sander L. van der Linden,
• Anthony A. Leiserowitz,
• Geoffrey D. Feinberg,
• Edward Due west. Maibach

x

• Published: Feb 25, 2015
• https://doi.org/x.1371/journal.pone.0118489

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Abstract

In that location is currently widespread public misunderstanding about the degree of scientific consensus on human-acquired climate alter, both in the US besides as internationally. Moreover, previous research has identified important associations between public perceptions of the scientific consensus, belief in climate change and back up for climate policy. This paper extends this line of research by advancing and providing experimental evidence for a "gateway belief model" (GBM). Using national data (North = 1104) from a consensus-message experiment, we observe that increasing public perceptions of the scientific consensus is significantly and causally associated with an increase in the belief that climate change is happening, human-acquired and a worrisome threat. In plow, changes in these key beliefs are predictive of increased support for public action. In short, we find that perceived scientific agreement is an of import gateway belief, ultimately influencing public responses to climatic change.

Citation: van der Linden SL, Leiserowitz AA, Feinberg GD, Maibach EW (2015) The Scientific Consensus on Climatic change as a Gateway Belief: Experimental Evidence. PLoS ONE x(2): e0118489. https://doi.org/ten.1371/periodical.pone.0118489

Academic Editor: Kristie L. Ebi, University of Washington, UNITED STATES

Received: September xxx, 2014; Accepted: January 18, 2015; Published: Feb 25, 2015

Copyright: © 2015 van der Linden et al. This is an open up admission article distributed under the terms of the Artistic Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Data Availability: All relevant data are inside the paper.

Funding: This research has been funded, in part, by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Rockefeller Family Fund (RFF) as well every bit by Lawrence Linden, Robert Litterman and Henry Paulson. The funders had no role in study design, data drove and analysis, decision to publish, or grooming of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have alleged that no competing interests exist.

INTRODUCTION

The scientific consensus that human activities are the primary driver of global climate change is now unequivocal. This consensus is constitute non only in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report [ane], merely also by several different studies, including surveys of experts [ii] and comprehensive reviews of the peer-reviewed literature on climate change [3] [4] [five]. All of these methods converge on the aforementioned basic conclusion: at least 97% of climate scientists accept concluded that human being-caused climatic change is happening [6].

Yet, although a scientific consensus on this basic fact has been reached, much of the public remains largely unaware of this, both in the Us as well equally internationally [7, eight]. For example, only one in 10 Americans (12%) correctly estimate scientific agreement at 90% or higher [7]. Moreover, influential ideological and politically-motivated actors, also known equally "manufacturers of doubtfulness", publicly dispute the existence of the scientific consensus [9, 10], including contempo media articles such as the "Myth of the Climatic change 97%" [eleven]. These efforts to undermine public understanding of the scientific consensus have arguably been quite successful, with cascading effects on public understanding that climate change is happening, human caused, a serious threat, and in turn, back up for climatic change mitigation and adaptation policies.

In light of the growing ideological divide on the issue [12] (paired with people's trend to selectively procedure information), some scholars have argued that only educating the public about the scientific consensus is unlikely to be a helpful arroyo [13, 14]. To better understand how people think, process and respond to the scientific consensus bulletin, this written report investigates a "gateway belief model" (GBM) of public responses to climate change.

The Gateway Conventionalities Model (GBM)

Perceived expert consensus plays an important role in the formation of public attitudes towards and the acceptance of full general scientific principles, including climate change [xv, xvi]. In fact, misperceptions of the scientific consensus tin can be highly consequential, as fifty-fifty a small amount of perceived scientific dissent tin undermine public support [17]. For example, a recent nationally representative written report [xviii] found that the caste of perceived scientific agreement influences primal behavior nigh global warming, which in turn, drive public back up for climate alter policies. McCright, Dunlap & Xiao [19] successfully replicated these results in a recent independent written report and similarly point to the robust role of perceived scientific agreement in generating public back up for climate change policies.

Yet, past inquiry in this expanse suffers from one major brusk-coming: the majority of these findings are based on cross-sectional survey data and thus correlational in nature. To date, there accept been no controlled representative experiments (or longitudinal studies) investigating the proposed causal relationship between public perceptions of the scientific consensus on climate change and support for public activeness. This written report builds upon and extends prior research in a novel direction by directly testing the "gateway belief" model experimentally. We posit that belief or disbelief in the scientific consensus on human-acquired climate change plays an of import function in the formation of public opinion on the consequence. This is consistent with prior research, which has found that highlighting scientific consensus increases conventionalities in man-caused climate change [15]. More specifically, we posit perceived scientific understanding as a "gateway belief" that either supports or undermines other primal beliefs almost climate alter, which in plow, influence back up for public activity. A schematic overview of the "gateway belief model" is presented in Fig. 1. Specifically, we hypothesize that an experimentally induced modify in the level of perceived consensus is causally associated with a subsequent change in the belief that climate change is (a) happening, (b) human-caused, and (c) how much people worry about the consequence (H1). In turn, a modify in these primal behavior is subsequently expected to lead to a change in respondents' support for societal action on climate change (H2). Thus, while the model predicts that the perceived level of scientific agreement acts every bit a cardinal psychological motivator, its effect on support for action is assumed to be fully mediated by key beliefs about climate change (H3).

Method

Sample and Participants

This assay draws upon results from a recent experiment that investigated how to effectively communicate the scientific consensus on climate alter (total details of the experiment, sample and materials are bachelor and described in van der Linden et al. [twenty]). The purpose of the experiment was to examination the efficacy of different ways to communicate the consensus-message (east.g., descriptive text, a pie chart, metaphors etc.). In total, eleven different handling weather were administered. The experiment was conducted using an online national quota sample (North = 1104) obtained from a major vendor (Survey Sampling International). The study was approved by the Yale Institutional Review Boards for upstanding inquiry (Homo Inquiry Protection Program) and participants signed a consent form with the sampling visitor (SSI) through which they chose to participate. A descriptive overview of the sample characteristics is provided in Table i.

Process and Materials

Subjects were asked to provide an approximate (0%–100%) of the perceived level of scientific consensus on human-acquired climate change at both the showtime (pre-test) and at the terminate of the survey (post-test). Respondents also answered a number of questions about whether they recollect climate change is happening, man-acquired, how worried they are nigh climatic change and whether they think people should be doing more than or less about the event. An overview of the key belief measures used in this written report is too provided in Tabular array 1. All the consensus messages tested led to significant gains in public understanding of the scientific consensus compared to the command group. The current study, however, analyzes the data for an entirely different purpose. This study investigates whether the consequence-size of the treatment messages (i.e., the alter in respondents' estimates of the scientific consensus) is causally associated with a pre-mail service modify in the belief that climate modify is happening, homo-caused and a worrisome problem that requires greater societal back up. To examination our hypotheses, all experimental consensus-message interventions were collapsed into a unmarried "handling" category and subsequently compared to the "command" grouping. The conceptual construction of the GBM (Fig. 1) is assessed using a structural equation modeling (SEM) arroyo.

Results

The path (mediation) model was estimated using STATA's (StataCorp) SEM software. As recommended past Preacher and Hayes [21], significance of furnishings and model parameters was assessed using bias-corrected and accelerated bootstrap confidence intervals (the information were resampled 1,000 times). Furthermore, according to Little's MCAR test, part of the data (approx. 8% of the sample) was missing, but non completely at random. As a result, the model was estimated using a Total Information Maximum Likelihood (FIML) procedure [22] and adjusted for of import covariates, including gender, education, age and political party. Using normally accepted criteria for model evaluation [23], the fit of the overall model structure is considered acceptable; χⁱⁱ (6) = 27.38, p < 0.01, χⁱⁱ / df = iv.56, CFI = 0.92, RMSEA = 0.06 (ninety% CI: 0.04–0.08). On average, existence in one of the treatment groups (vs. the control grouping) significantly increases respondents' approximate of the scientific consensus (by 12.80%). Moreover, a change in a respondent'southward estimate of the scientific consensus significantly influences the belief that climate change is happening, human-acquired, and the extent to which they worry near the issue (note that belief in climate alter and human causation besides directly influence level of "worry"). Changes in these factors, in plough, significantly predict support for public activeness on climate change. As hypothesized, the issue of the treatment (i.e. increased belief in the scientific consensus) on the expressed demand for public action is fully mediated past the intervening variables (i.e., key behavior about climate change). Similarly, the effect of the handling on the key-belief measures is fully mediated by perceived scientific agreement.

While the model "controls" for the outcome of political political party, nosotros also explicitly tested an alternative model specification that included an interaction-result between the consensus-treatments and political party identification. Because the interaction term did not significantly amend model fit (nor change the significance of the coefficients), it was non represented in the final model (to preserve parsimony). Nonetheless, it is important to note that the interaction itself was positive and meaning (β = 3.25, SE = 0.88, t = three.68, p < 0.001); suggesting that compared to Democrats, Republican subjects responded particularly well to the scientific consensus message. A visual depiction of the results is provided in Fig. two and a detailed overview of the effect sizes and model parameters is provided in Table 2.

Give-and-take

Previous research has suggested that perceptions of the scientific consensus play an important role in the germination of public beliefs and attitudes towards climatic change and, moreover, that (mis)perceptions of the scientific consensus potentially decrease public back up for climate change policies [fifteen–nineteen]. This study constructively builds upon and extends this inquiry past providing direct experimental evidence for the "gateway conventionalities model" (GBM). Using pre and post measures from a national message test experiment, we plant that all stated hypotheses were confirmed; increasing public perceptions of the scientific consensus causes a significant increase in the belief that climate change is (a) happening, (b) human-caused and (c) a worrisome problem. In turn, changes in these key beliefs lead to increased support for public action. In sum, these findings provide the strongest evidence to appointment that public understanding of the scientific consensus is consequential.

Information technology is important to note that the gateway belief model (GBM) describes a two-step cascading outcome. First, the effect of consensus messaging on fundamental beliefs about climate change is fully mediated by the perceived level of scientific understanding. Second, the event of the induced increase in perceived scientific consensus is fully mediated onto support for public activity via the key beliefs about climate change. In other words, conventionalities in the scientific consensus functions as an initial "gateway" to changes in key beliefs about climate alter, which in turn, influence support for public activeness. Thus, consistent with other recent enquiry, this study found that when in uncertainty most scientific facts, people are likely to employ consensus amongst domain experts as a heuristic to guide their behavior and behavior [xv].

These findings take important practical implications for scientific discipline communication and stand in direct juxtaposition to the claim that "consensus-messaging" is not effective as a communication strategy [13, 14]. In particular, it is sometimes argued that (a) despite past public communication efforts, public understanding of the scientific consensus has non changed much in the final decade and hence the approach must not be very effective (i.e., "the stasis argument") [xiii] and (b) because people are predisposed to appoint in protective motivated reasoning (i.e., people process information consistent with their ideological worldviews), consensus-messaging is likely to be unsuccessful or could even backlash [12, xiv].

The present study finds no back up for these claims. On the reverse, results of this report show that perceived scientific consensus acts as a key gateway conventionalities for both Democrats and Republicans. In fact, the consensus message had a larger influence on Republican respondents. It should exist noted that this interaction might, to some extent, be attributable to a ceiling effect (i.e., there is relatively less up adjustment potential in perceived scientific consensus for Democrats, although a significant gap in understanding persists even amidst Democrats). We do non dispute, however, that some people—peculiarly those with stiff ideological responses to the issue—selectively procedure data or engage in motivated reasoning [9, xiv]. Yet, nosotros detect that consensus-messaging does not increase political polarization on the effect (peradventure partly due to the neutral scientific character of the message) and shifts the opinions of both Democrats and Republicans in directions consistent with the conclusions of climate scientific discipline.

Furthermore, other contempo inquiry [24] has suggested that past campaigns accept been unsuccessful (in both their reach and exposure), given that a substantial lack of awareness of the scientific consensus still persists ("information deficit") while at the same fourth dimension, the spread of misinformation has vastly increased ("misinformation surplus"). Considering people frequently run across multiple and conflicting advisory cues, the criticism might be raised that as a controlled experiment, this study may enlarge the actual effect that consensus messaging would have in the real-earth. While we agree with this view and encounter this every bit an important and open area for futurity inquiry, this shortcoming does not, withal, negate the structural validity of the GBM'southward causal mechanisms. It is also of import to annotation that this study simply used a unmarried treatment, still found that even a unmarried, simple description of the scientific consensus significantly shifted public perceptions of the consensus and subsequent climate change beliefs and desire for action. A concerted campaign to inform the public about the scientific consensus would ideally involve numerous exposures to the central message, conveyed past a variety of trusted messengers [6, 20].

This is important because past strategically sowing seeds of dubiousness, organized opponents of climate change action have continually tried to undermine the validity of the scientific consensus statement [11]. As this inquiry shows, such attempts could potentially decrease public engagement with climatic change. Notwithstanding, the present enquiry also indicates the potential efficacy of consensus-messaging campaigns in mitigating such skepticism, as well as in generating back up for public activeness on climate change. Particularly, repeated exposure to uncomplicated letters that correctly state the actual scientific consensus on human-caused climate change is a strategy probable to help counter the concerted efforts to misinform the public. Finer communicating the scientific consensus can also assistance movement the consequence of climate modify forrard on the public policy agenda [vi] [15] [20] [24–25].

Supporting Information

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: SLV AAL GDF EWM. Performed the experiments: SLV AAL GDF. Analyzed the data: SLV. Wrote the newspaper: SLV AAL GDF EWM.

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