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The polarizing impact of science literacy and numeracy on perceived climate change risks

Nature Climate Change 2, 732–735 (2012) | Download Citation

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Abstract

Seeming public apathy over climate change is often attributed to a deficit in comprehension. The public knows too little science, it is claimed, to understand the evidence or avoid being misled1. Widespread limits on technical reasoning aggravate the problem by forcing citizens to use unreliable cognitive heuristics to assess risk2. We conducted a study to test this account and found no support for it. Members of the public with the highest degrees of science literacy and technical reasoning capacity were not the most concerned about climate change. Rather, they were the ones among whom cultural polarization was greatest. This result suggests that public divisions over climate change stem not from the public’s incomprehension of science but from a distinctive conflict of interest: between the personal interest individuals have in forming beliefs in line with those held by others with whom they share close ties and the collective one they all share in making use of the best available science to promote common welfare.

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Acknowledgements

Research for this paper was financially supported by the National Science Foundation, Grant SES 0922714.

Author information

Affiliations

  1. Yale University, Yale Law School, PO Box 208215, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA

    • Dan M. Kahan

  2. The Ohio State University, 235 Psychology Building, 1835 Neil Avenue, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA

    • Ellen Peters

  3. Cultural Cognition Project Lab, Yale University, Yale Law School, PO Box 208215, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

    • Maggie Wittlin
    •  & Lisa Larrimore Ouellette

  4. Decision Research, 1201 Oak Street, Suite 200, Eugene, Oregon 97401, USA

    • Paul Slovic

  5. George Washington University, 2000 H Street, N.W, Washington DC 20052, USA

    • Donald Braman

  6. Temple University, 1719 North Broad St., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122, USA

    • Gregory Mandel

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Contributions

D.M.K., E.P., M.W. and L.L.O. contributed to all aspects of the paper, including study design, statistical analysis and writing and revisions. P.S., D.B. and G.M. contributed to the design of the study, to substantive analysis of the results and to revisions of the paper.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dan M. Kahan.

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DOI

https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1547

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