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Public attention to science and political news and support for climate change mitigation

Nature Climate Change volume 5, pages 541–545 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

We examine how attention to science and political news may influence public knowledge, perceived harm, and support for climate mitigation policies. Previous research examining these relationships1,2 has not fully accounted for how political ideology shapes the mental processes through which the public interprets media discourses about climate change. We incorporate political ideology and the concept of motivated cognition into our analysis to compare and contrast two prominent models of opinion formation, the scientific literacy model3,4,5, which posits that disseminating scientific information will move public opinion towards the scientific consensus, and the motivated reasoning model6,7, which posits that individuals will interpret information in a biased manner. Our analysis finds support for both models of opinion formation with key differences across ideological groups. Attention to science news was associated with greater perceptions of harm and knowledge for conservatives, but only additional knowledge for liberals. Supporting the literacy model, greater knowledge was associated with more support for climate mitigation for liberals. In contrast, consistent with motivated reasoning, more knowledgeable conservatives were less supportive of mitigation policy. In addition, attention to political news had a negative association with perceived harm for conservatives but not for liberals.

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Figure 1: Model used for analysis.
Figure 2: Converging effects of scientific news attention on harm and perceptions of harm on policy support at varying levels of political ideology.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant SES-0752876), the Ohio State University School of Communication Miller Research Award, and the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station federal formula funds, Project No. NYC-131405, received from Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, US Department of Agriculture.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Michigan, 5417 North Quad, 105 S. State Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA,

    P. Sol Hart

  2. The Ohio State University, 3062 Derby Hall, 154 North Oval Mall, Columbus, Ohio 43201, USA,

    Erik C. Nisbet

  3. George Mason University, Center for Climate Change Communication, 251 Research Hall (Research I), Ffx, MSN: 3D6, Fairfax, Virginia 22030, USA,

    Teresa A. Myers

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Contributions

The contribution of the respective authors is as follows: P.S.H. contributed to designing the study, writing the manuscript, and guided data analysis. P.S.H. is responsible for preserving the original data on which the paper is based, verifying that the figures and conclusions accurately reflect the data collected and that manipulations to images are in accordance with Nature journal guidelines, and minimization of obstacles to sharing materials, data and algorithms; E.C.N. contributed to designing the study and writing the manuscript; T.A.M. performed data analysis with MPlus and contributed to writing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to P. Sol Hart.

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Hart, P., Nisbet, E. & Myers, T. Public attention to science and political news and support for climate change mitigation. Nature Clim Change 5, 541–545 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2577

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