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Six minutes to promote change: People, not facts, alter students' perceptions on climate change.

ABSTRACT: Anthropogenic climate change threatens the structure and function of ecosystems throughout the globe, but many people are still skeptical of its existence. Traditional "knowledge deficit model" thinking has suggested that providing the public with more facts about climate change will assuage skepticism. However, presenting evidence contrary to prior beliefs can have the opposite effect and result in a strengthening of previously held beliefs, a phenomenon known as biased assimilation or a backfire effect. Given this, strategies for effectively communicating about socioscientific issues that are politically controversial need to be thoroughly investigated. We randomly assigned 184 undergraduates from an environmental science class to one of three experimental conditions in which we exposed them to short videos that employed different messaging strategies: (a) an engaging science lecture, (b) consensus messaging, and (c) elite cues. We measured changes in student perceptions of climate change across five constructs (content knowledge, acceptance of scientific consensus, perceived risk, support for action, and climate identity) before and after viewing videos. Consensus messaging outperformed the other two conditions in increasing student acceptance of the scientific consensus, perceived risk of climate change, and climate identity, suggesting this may be an effective strategy for communicating the gravity of anthropogenic climate change. Elite cues outperformed the engaging science lecture condition in increasing student support for action on climate, with politically conservative students driving this relationship, suggesting that the messenger is more important than the message if changing opinions about the necessity of action on climate change is the desired outcome. Relative to the other conditions, the engaging science lecture did not support change in students' perceptions on climate, but appealing to student respect for authority produced positive results. Notably, we observed no decline in students' acceptance of climate science, indicating that none of the conditions induced a backfire effect.

SUBMITTER: Sauer KA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8207154 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Background Understanding public perceptions of the health risks of climate change is critical to inform risk communication and support the adoption of adaptive behaviours. In Canada, very few studies have explored public understandings and perceptions of climate impacts on health. The objective of this study was to address this gap by exploring perceptions of the link between climate change and health. Methods We conducted a survey of Canadians (n = 3,014) to address this objective. The 116-question survey measured prior consideration of the link between climate change and health, affective assessment of climate health impacts, unprompted knowledge of climate health impacts, and concern about a range of impacts. ANOVA tests were used to assess differences among sociodemographic groups. Results Overall, Canadian’s have a similar level of concern about health impacts of climate change compared with concern about other impacts (e.g. biophysical, economic, and national security). Among health-related impacts, respondents were more concerned about impacts on water, food and air quality, compared with impacts on mental health, infectious diseases and heat-related illnesses. There were differences among sociodemographic groups; women were significantly more concerned than men about all of the health-related impacts; respondents with a high school level of education were significantly less concerned about all health-related impacts compared with respondents with more education; and respondents on the political left were more concerned with those in the political centre, who were more concerned than those on the political right. Conclusion There is emerging literature suggesting that framing communication around climate change in terms of the health risks it poses may increase perceptions of the proximity of the risks. These results suggest that it is important to be specific in the types of health risks that are communicated, and to consider the concerns of the target sociodemographic groups. The differential knowledge, awareness, and concern of climate health impacts across segments of the Canadian population can inform targeted communication and engagement to build broader support for adaptation and mitigation measures. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-023-15105-z.

Project description:The role of forest management in mitigating climate change is a central concern for the Canadian province of British Columbia. The successful implementation of forest management activities to achieve climate change mitigation in British Columbia will be strongly influenced by public support or opposition. While we now have increasingly clear ideas of the management opportunities associated with forest mitigation and some insight into public support for climate change mitigation in the context of sustainable forest management, very little is known with respect to the levels and basis of public support for potential forest management strategies to mitigate climate change. This paper, by describing the results of a web-based survey, documents levels of public support for the implementation of eight forest carbon mitigation strategies in British Columbia's forest sector, and examines and quantifies the influence of the factors that shape this support. Overall, respondents ascribed a high level of importance to forest carbon mitigation and supported all of the eight proposed strategies, indicating that the British Columbia public is inclined to consider alternative practices in managing forests and wood products to mitigate climate change. That said, we found differences in levels of support for the mitigation strategies. In general, we found greater levels of support for a rehabilitation strategy (e.g. reforestation of unproductive forest land), and to a lesser extent for conservation strategies (e.g. old growth conservation, reduced harvest) over enhanced forest management strategies (e.g. improved harvesting and silvicultural techniques). We also highlighted multiple variables within the British Columbia population that appear to play a role in predicting levels of support for conservation and/or enhanced forest management strategies, including environmental values, risk perception, trust in groups of actors, prioritized objectives of forest management and socio-demographic factors.

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Six minutes to promote change: People, not facts, alter students' perceptions on climate change.

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