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The Effect of Information Provision on Public Consensus about Climate Change
Open accessAbstract
Despite over 20 years of research and scientific consensus on the topic, climate change continues to be a politically polarizing issue. We conducted a survey experiment to test whether providing the public with information on the exact extent of scientific agreement about the occurrence and causes of climate change affects respondents' own beliefs and bridges the divide between conservatives and liberals. First, we show that the public significantly underestimated the extent of the scientific consensus. We then find that those given concrete information about scientists' views were more likely to report believing that climate change was already underway and that it was caused by humans. However, their beliefs about the necessity of making policy decisions and their willingness to donate money to combat climate change were not affected. Information provision affected liberals, moderates, and conservatives similarly, implying that the gap in beliefs between liberals and conservatives is not likely to be bridged by information treatments similar to the one we study. Finally, we conducted a 6-month follow-up with respondents to see if the treatment effect persisted; the results were statistically inconclusive.
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“experimental studies have consistently shown that consensus messages can effectively correct people's perceptions of what scientists believe about climate change (Van der Linden et al., 2015;Deryugina and Shurchkov, 2016;Bolsen and Druckman, 2018).”
From Factual belief polarization between Democrats and Republicans: source or epiphenomenon of ideological and affective polarization? (2024) · cites this paper as Deryugina and Shurchkov, 2016
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
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“Several studies found that consensus messages did not change people's own beliefs about climate change or their attitudes toward climate action (Deryugina and Shurchkov, 2016;Dixon et al., 2017;Bolsen and Druckman, 2018).”
From Factual belief polarization between Democrats and Republicans: source or epiphenomenon of ideological and affective polarization? (2024) · cites this paper as Deryugina and Shurchkov, 2016
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Inoculating the Public against Misinformation about Climate Change
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Metadata
- Authors
- Deryugina, T., & Shurchkov, O.
- Affiliations
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
- Wellesley College (US)
- Corresponding author
- Deryugina, Tatyana
- Venue
- PLOS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2016-04-11
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- e0151469
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4827814
- OpenAlex
- W2322343349
- Cited by
- 150
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 31 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 21 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 5
- FWCI
- 42.89
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- UIUC Campus Research Board (13013)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Climate Change Communication and Perception
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Climate Change Policy and Economics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Risk Perception and Management
- Keywords
- climate change, scientific consensus, information provision, political polarization, public opinion, belief updating, willingness to pay, liberals and conservatives, survey experiment
- MeSH terms
- Humans, Public Opinion, Consensus, Geographic Information Systems, Climate Change
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