Geoengineering and Climate Change Polarization: Testing a Two-Channel Model of Science Communication

The cultural cognition thesis posits that individuals rely extensively on cultural meanings in forming perceptions of risk. The logic of the cultural cognition thesis suggests that a two-channel science communication strategy, combining information content ("Channel 1") with cultural meani...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Vol. 658; no. 1; pp. 192 - 222
Main Authors KAHAN, DAN M., JENKINS-SMITH, HANK, TARANTOLA, TOR, SILVA, CAROL L., BRAMAN, DONALD
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.03.2015
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Carbon emissions
Climate change
Cognition
Cognition & reasoning
Communication
Culture
Geoengineering
Hypothesis
Information
Politics and Science Communication
Risk
Scientific communication
U.S.A
England
United States > US
ANE, British Isles, England
USA
polarization
risk
cognition
motivated reasoning
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Summary:The cultural cognition thesis posits that individuals rely extensively on cultural meanings in forming perceptions of risk. The logic of the cultural cognition thesis suggests that a two-channel science communication strategy, combining information content ("Channel 1") with cultural meanings ("Channel 2"), could promote open-minded assessment of information across diverse communities. We test this kind of communication strategy in a two-nation (United States, n = 1,500; England, n = 1,500) study, in which scientific information content on climate change was held constant while the cultural meaning of that information was experimentally manipulated. We found that cultural polarization over the validity of climate change science is offset by making citizens aware of the potential contribution of geoengineering as a supplement to restriction of CO2 emissions. We also tested the hypothesis, derived from a competing model of science communication, that exposure to information on geoengineering would lead citizens to discount climate change risks generally. Contrary to this hypothesis, we found that subjects exposed to information about geoengineering were slightly more concerned about climate change risks than those assigned to a control condition.
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ISSN:0002-7162
1552-3349
DOI:10.1177/0002716214559002