Perception of Climate Change

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

One of the great challenges for the scientific community over the next decade is to provide useful guidance to society regarding the implications of global climate change, including the substantial uncertainties involved. Moreover, the methods by which that information is communicated have the power to shape public attitudes and response. This project is designed to clarify the relationships between specific methods of climate communication, cognitive processes, attitudes and decisions. The project focuses on four key factors in climate mitigation choices 1) trust in climate projections, 2) concern about climate change 3) self-efficacy with respect to climate change mitigation efforts (whether one feels that one can have an impact) and 4) causal understanding of the mechanisms that underlie climate change. A series of experiments, using a wide range of methodologies, will test the influence of communications strategies on each of these factors as well as whether they interact with participant characteristics such as partisanship, age and gender. Effective climate change communication is a critical challenge for society. It requires transforming complex scientific information, including uncertainty information, into understandable yet relevant projections for a wide range of users in both public and private decisions. This project informs the design of such communications in the context of climate change as well as in other domains. Experimental procedures test whether climate projections that include uncertainty estimates enhance user trust, the perception of scientific consensus, decision quality and the role of immediate feedback on some of these effects. Experiments also test the role of availability (recent experience with weather consistent with global warming) on risk perception and decisions. Four key communication strategies are explored. This research will test whether 1) the inclusion of uncertainty estimates in climate projections increases trust or impacts the perception of scientific consensus, 2) reducing the level of abstraction impacts mental representations, concern, self-efficacy, or decisions 3) descriptions of extreme weather events consistent with climate change (e.g. heat waves) increase concern or climate friendly choices, 4) causal explanations enhance trust in climate projections or self-efficacy.Furthermore, this project conducts the first experimental comparison of the impact of availability from experience and availability from description. If the latter is effective it may be useful in counteracting the psychological consequences of experience inconsistent with global warming. This project also provides a first experimental test of the impact of causal explanations on trust in climate projections and on self-efficacy with respect to climate mitigation efforts. This project tests whether abstraction in mental representations can be altered with simple communication techniques using a repeated measures design, whether observed changes endure over time, and whether they influence concern about climate change, self-efficacy, and decision-making. By investigating these general mechanisms, the project adds to the scientific understanding of the ways in which people comprehend, evaluate and choose how to act upon predictive communications in risky contexts, advancing both risk communication and decision sciences. Effective climate change communication is a critical challenge requiring transforming complex scientific information, including uncertainty information, into understandable yet relevant projections for a wide range of users in both public and private decisions. The results of this work will inform the design of climate communications as well as predictions and forecasts in a wide range of domains.