Communicating the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change: Diverse Audiences and Effects Over Time
Open accessPublished version of a preprint
Abstract
Prior research has demonstrated that communicating the scientific consensus that human-caused climate change is happening is an effective way to increase public understanding and engagement with the issue. However, less is known about (1) how persuasive this message is to oppositional audiences, (2) how long message effects last over time, and (3) what factors predict whether such effects last. We address these questions in a two-wave longitudinal study and find that consensus messaging leads to updated consensus beliefs across Global Warming’s Six Americas. Although consensus treatment effects decay over time, 40% of the original treatment effect remains 26 days later. Additionally, the treatment effect is most durable among people Doubtful or Dismissive of climate change. Our findings address an ongoing debate in the literature and support a Bayesian learning perspective, with little evidence of motivated reasoning.
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Some recent evidence suggests that when people are taught about the role of consensus and what the consensus is on a topic, this can help to bring their ideas into alignment with the science.
“Some recent evidence suggests that when people are taught about the role of consensus and what the consensus is on a topic, this can help to bring their ideas into alignment with the science (Goldberg et al., 2022;van der Linden et al., 2015).”
From Learning to evaluate sources of science (mis)information on the internet: Assessing students' scientific online reasoning (2025) · cites this paper as Goldberg et al., 2022
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Pimentel, D. R. (2025) · Journal of Research in Science Teaching · doi:10.1002/tea.21974 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
- Authors
- Goldberg, M. H., Gustafson, A., van der Linden, S., Rosenthal, S. A., & Leiserowitz, A.
- Affiliations
- Yale University (US)
- University of Cincinnati (US)
- University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- Corresponding author
- Goldberg, Matthew H.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Environment and Behavior
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2022-08
- Volume
- 54
- Issue
- 7-8
- Pages
- 1133-1165
- ISSN
- 0013-9165 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-390X
- OpenAlex
- W4303987368
- Cited by
- 46
- References
- 20
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 1
- FWCI
- 13.31
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- Environment and Behavior (publishedVersion)
- PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- 11th Hour Project
- Energy Foundation
- Heising-Simons Foundation
- John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Climate Change Communication and Perception
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Risk Perception and Management
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Climate Change Policy and Economics
- Keywords
- climate change communication, public opinion on climate change, treatment effects over time, climate change skepticism, Bayesian learning, motivated reasoning
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