How People Update Beliefs about Climate Change- Good News and Bad News

Article Overview

• Title: How People Update Beliefs about Climate Change: Good News and Bad News

• Authors: Cass R. Sunstein, Sebastian Bobadilla-Suarez, Stephanie C. Lazzaro, Tali Sharot

• Published In: Cornell Law Review Volume 102, Issue 6, September 2017

• Citation: 102 Cornell L. Rev. 1431 (2017)

• Purpose: To understand how new information influences beliefs about climate change, focusing on asymmetrical updating between groups with differing initial beliefs.

Key Concepts

Asymmetrical Updating

• Individuals tend to alter their beliefs differently based on new information:

  • Low Belief Group (unsure about man-made climate change):

    • More responsive to good news (expectation of lower temperature rise).

    • Little to no belief change in response to bad news (expectation of higher temperature rise).

  • High Belief Group (strongly believe in man-made climate change):

    • More responsive to bad news (expectation of higher temperature rise).

    • Less responsive to good news (expectation of lower temperature rise).

Implications of Findings

• Exposure to varied information about climate change can increase polarization within a population.

• Different groups interpret and respond to new evidence based on their existing beliefs.

Study Details

Participants

• Sample Size: 302 volunteers from Amazon Mechanical Turk (177 males, 125 females).

• Demographics: 45.7% aged 29 or younger; 73.8% identified as White; 49.7% Democrats.

Tasks

1. Participants assessed their beliefs about climate change using three questions:

   • Do you consider yourself an environmentalist?

   • Do you believe that man-made climate change is occurring?

   • Do you support the Paris agreement?

2. Based on answers, participants received a Climate Change Belief (CCB) score to categorize them into high, medium, and low belief groups.

3. Each participant received initial information about climate change and later was assigned to a good news or bad news condition to see how their beliefs changed.

Results

• Interaction Effect:

  • Low belief group updated beliefs more with good news, while high belief group updated more with bad news.

  • Medium belief group showed no significant difference in updating based on new information.

• Significance of Changes: Every group's updates were significantly different from zero, except the low belief group in the bad news condition.

Mechanisms Behind Asymmetrical Updating

Motivated Reasoning

• Positive information (good news) reinforces beliefs for low belief individuals, leading them to update more.

• Bad news (which threatens their existing views) has little effect on their belief updates, while bad news for high belief individuals confirms their concerns.

Bayesian Updating

• Individuals hold belief distributions rather than fixed beliefs. New evidence causes adjustment in beliefs based on these distributions, leading to skewed updates depending on if the news is good or bad.

Broader Implications

• Findings suggest that asymmetrical updating can lead to greater political and social polarization.

• The manner in which people interpret new evidence could be relevant across various contested issues (terrorism, immigration, healthcare).

• Looking ahead, understanding this phenomenon may help predict and address conflicting beliefs in critical societal issues.