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Outline of Talk

Uncertainty, Trust, and The Motivated Rejection of Climate Science Dr. Sander van der Linden Dutch Statistical Society Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication @Sander_vdLinden. Outline of Talk.

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Outline of Talk

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  1. Uncertainty, Trust, and The Motivated Rejection of Climate ScienceDr. Sander van der Linden Dutch Statistical SocietyDepartment of Psychology, University of CambridgeWinton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication @Sander_vdLinden

  2. Outline of Talk • A short history of climate science denial • Inoculating against misinformation • Communicating uncertainty in a post-truth world

  3. Part I: Manufacturing doubt about the scienceLet’s agree to disagree

  4. The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change

  5. The scientific consensus on human-caused climate change

  6. Who counts as an “expert”?

  7. The Luntz Memo: Attack the scientific consensus

  8. Uncertainty as a vehicle for the politicization of science

  9. Concerted Disinformation Campaigns

  10. Concerted Disinformation Campaigns

  11. Misperceptions of the scientific consensus

  12. Public Perception of the Scientific Consensus

  13. Post-truth: misperceiving the scientific norm

  14. Normative Belief Change Processes

  15. Gateway Belief Model (GBM) – van der Linden et al. (2015, 2017)

  16. Gateway Belief Model (GBM) – van der Linden et al. (2015, 2017)

  17. The Conspiracy-Effect (van der Linden, 2015) • Online experiment (N = 316) • Conspiracy-theory condition • (“The Great Global Warming Swindle”). • Climate “inspirational” video (UN). • Control group (neutral word puzzle). • Outcomemeasures: • Public perception of the scientific consensus. • Sign a real online “stop global warming” petition. • Pro-social intentions to donate or volunteer for a charity in the next six months.

  18. Perceptions of scientific consensus (0% to 100%) 72% 70% F(2,309) = 5.77, p < 0.01 61% van der Linden, S. (2015). The Conspiracy-Effect: Exposure to Conspiracy Theories (about Global Warming) Decreases Pro-Social Behavior and Science Acceptance. Personality and Individual Differences, 87, 171-173.

  19. % Signed “Stop” Global Warming Petition 43% 34% 23%*** van der Linden, S. (2015). The Conspiracy-Effect: Exposure to Conspiracy Theories (about Global Warming) Decreases Pro-Social Behavior and Science Acceptance. Personality and Individual Differences, 87, 171-173.

  20. “When facts fail”

  21. If the human brain was Bayesian (all of the time)..

  22. Selective Attention, Confirmation Bias, and Motivated Reasoning Attitude polarization Directionally motivated reasoning Motivated numeracy Selective Attention Motivated Reasoning Confirmation Bias

  23. Motivated Cognition on Steroids: The Motivated Numeracy Hypothesis

  24. Does exposure to evidence lead to belief polarization?

  25. Does exposure to evidence lead to belief polarization?

  26. Does exposure to evidence lead to belief polarization?

  27. The Consensus-Heuristic

  28. The Wisdom of (Expert) Crowds (Galton, 1907) • “When independently formed judgements are aggregated, the average estimate of a (large) group is as good, and often more accurate, than individual judgements”. • People intuitively prefer to rely on the combined judgment of multiple experts (Mannes, Soll, & Larrick, 2014).

  29. Non-identity threatening meta-cognition (van der Linden et al., 2017)

  30. Part II: Inoculating against misinformation

  31. Inoculating against misinformation

  32. A psychological vaccine against fake news

  33. The psychology of persuasion (Yale School) William McGuire

  34. “Continued Influence Effect”

  35. The process of psychological “inoculation” + + Shift in Perception

  36. We showed participants..

  37. The process of psychological “inoculation” + + Shift in Perception

  38. We showed participants…

  39. The process of psychological “inoculation” + + Shift in Perception

  40. The process of psychological “inoculation” Triggers production of mental “antibodies” Through internal rehearsal

  41. A psychological vaccine against fake news ‘Partial Vaccine’ ‘Full Vaccine’

  42. The process of psychological “inoculation” + + Shift in Perception

  43. Part III: Communicating Uncertainty

  44. Uncertainty Study Design • Participants were recruited on Prolific Academic, a platform for online research. In total, 1126 people participated in this study, of which 68.4% were female. The average age of the people in our sample was 37.65 years (SD = 12.19). • Participants were randomly allocated to one of 9 conditions (about 125 participants per condition), in which they read a short text about one of the three topics (tigers, climate science, or unemployment) that included either an estimate, an estimate with a numerical range, or an estimate with a verbal uncertainty expression. • Recently, an official report came out with new information about global warming. This report stated that between 1880 and 2012, the earth’s average global surface temperature has increased by an estimated 0.85°C [minimum 0.65 to maximum 1.06] [this number could be somewhat higher or lower]

  45. Does uncertainty increase or decrease trust in numbers?

  46. Does uncertainty increase or decrease trust in numbers?

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