UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Climate change policy support, intended behaviour change, and their drivers largely unaffected by consensus messages in Germany

How can communication contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions through behaviour change and policy support? The existing literature emphasises informing people about the scientific consensus on climate change, but the underlying research has been conducted mainly in the US, where prior beliefs in human-made climate change are lower than in many other countries with the highest per-capita emissions. We test consensus messages in an ‘extended gateway belief model ’ using a pre-registered survey experiment on a representative quota sample of the German population ( N = 1171). Our data show that consensus messages are likely to have no or only minimal effects on perceived scientific agreement, intended behaviour change and policy support. Still, in line with prior research, we find that perceived scientific agreement, belief in climate science, efficacy beliefs, and worry about climate change predict policy support and intended behaviour change. These results demonstrate that effective communication needs tailoring to its local context.

[1]  F. Mayer.  Statistisches , 2023, Zeitschrift des Historischen Vereins für das Württembergische Franken.

[2]  Ipcc.  Global Warming of 1.5°C , 2022 .

[3]  P. S. Hart,et al.  Climate Change Consensus Messages Cause Reactance , 2021, Environmental Communication.

[4]  S. van der Linden.  The Gateway Belief Model (GBM): A review and research agenda for communicating the scientific consensus on climate change. , 2021, Current opinion in psychology.

[5]  B. Verplanken,et al.  On the nature of eco-anxiety: How constructive or unconstructive is habitual worry about global warming? , 2020 .

[6]  James N. Druckman,et al.  A Research Agenda for Climate Change Communication and Public Opinion: The Role of Scientific Consensus Messaging and Beyond , 2020, Environmental Communication.

[7]  Matthew H. Goldberg,et al.  Beliefs about others' global warming beliefs: The role of party affiliation and opinion deviance , 2020 .

[8]  Jay D. Hmielowski,et al.  Asymmetry of Partisan Media Effects?: Examining the Reinforcing Process of Conservative and Liberal Media with Political Beliefs , 2020 .

[9]  W. Poortinga,et al.  Exploring relationships between climate change beliefs and energy preferences: A network analysis of the European Social Survey , 2020, Journal of Environmental Psychology.

[10]  S. van der Linden,et al.  Combatting climate change misinformation: Evidence for longevity of inoculation and consensus messaging effects , 2020, Journal of Environmental Psychology.

[11]  G. Luderer,et al.  Taking stock of national climate policies to evaluate implementation of the Paris Agreement , 2020, Nature Communications.

[12]  G. Bradley,et al.  The role of climate change risk perception, response efficacy, and psychological adaptation in pro-environmental behavior: A two nation study , 2020, Journal of Environmental Psychology.

[13]  Marc J. Stern,et al.  Messaging for environmental action: The role of moral framing and message source , 2020 .

[14]  Sarah Depaoli,et al.  A Tutorial on Using The Wambs Checklist to Avoid The Misuse of Bayesian Statistics , 2020 .

[15]  Terrence D. Jorgensen,et al.  Adapting fit indices for Bayesian structural equation modeling: Comparison to maximum likelihood. , 2020, Psychological methods.

[16]  J. Yang,et al.  Risk or Efficacy? How Psychological Distance Influences Climate Change Engagement , 2020, Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis.

[17]  Jay D. Hmielowski,et al.  More Evidence of Psychological Reactance to Consensus Messaging: A Response to van der Linden, Maibach, and Leiserowitz (2019) , 2019, Environmental Communication.

[18]  Kelly S. Fielding,et al.  Using ingroup messengers and ingroup values to promote climate change policy , 2019, Climatic Change.

[19]  Matthew H. Goldberg,et al.  A Social Identity Approach to Engaging Christians in the Issue of Climate Change , 2019, Science Communication.

[20]  Gilles E. Gignac,et al.  Science by social media: Attitudes towards climate change are mediated by perceived social consensus , 2019, Memory & Cognition.

[21]  N. Newman,et al.  Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2019 , 2019 .

[22]  A. Leiserowitz,et al.  Exposure to Scientific Consensus Does Not Cause Psychological Reactance , 2019, Environmental Communication.

[23]  E. Rohling.  The Climate Question , 2019 .

[24]  A. Leiserowitz,et al.  The gateway belief model: A large-scale replication , 2019, Journal of Environmental Psychology.

[25]  J. Canadell,et al.  Drivers of declining CO2 emissions in 18 developed economies , 2019, Nature Climate Change.

[26]  Karen McIntyre.  Solutions Journalism , 2019 .

[27]  Jay D. Hmielowski,et al.  Psychological Reactance From Reading Basic Facts on Climate Change: The Role of Prior Views and Political Identification , 2018, Environmental Communication.

[28]  J. Kruschke.  Rejecting or Accepting Parameter Values in Bayesian Estimation , 2018 .

[29]  B. Tranter,et al.  The influence of political leaders on climate change attitudes , 2018 .

[30]  Keiichi Kobayashi.  The Impact of Perceived Scientific and Social Consensus on Scientific Beliefs , 2018 .

[31]  Joris Mulder,et al.  Prior Sensitivity Analysis in Default Bayesian Structural Equation Modeling , 2017, Psychological methods.

[32]  Torrin M. Liddell,et al.  The Bayesian New Statistics: Hypothesis testing, estimation, meta-analysis, and power analysis from a Bayesian perspective , 2016, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[33]  Felix D. Schönbrodt,et al.  Bayes factor design analysis: Planning for compelling evidence , 2016, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.

[34]  Lauren A. Feldman,et al.  The Influence of Climate Change Efficacy Messages and Efficacy Beliefs on Intended Political Participation , 2016, PloS one.

[35]  T. Moss,et al.  The German Energiewende – What's happening? Introducing the special issue , 2016 .

[36]  Lauren A. Feldman,et al.  Using Political Efficacy Messages to Increase Climate Activism , 2016 .

[37]  Jürgen-Friedrich Hake,et al.  The German Energiewende – History and status quo , 2015 .

[38]  Yves Rosseel,et al.  blavaan: Bayesian structural equation models via parameter expansion , 2015, 1511.05604.

[39]  Kelly S. Fielding,et al.  Evidence for motivated control: Understanding the paradoxical link between threat and efficacy beliefs about climate change , 2015 .

[40]  A. Leiserowitz,et al.  The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change as a Gateway Belief: Experimental Evidence , 2015, PloS one.

[41]  Jay D. Hmielowski,et al.  The Mutual Reinforcement of Media Selectivity and Effects: Testing the Reinforcing Spirals Framework in the Context of Global Warming , 2014 .

[42]  T. M. Harrison,et al.  Applying the Risk Information Seeking and Processing Model to Examine Support for Climate Change Mitigation Policy , 2014 .

[43]  Lauren Feldman,et al.  Threat Without Efficacy? Climate Change on U.S. Network News , 2014 .

[44]  James Painter,et al.  Cross-national comparison of the presence of climate scepticism in the print media in six countries, 2007–10 , 2012 .

[45]  Taciano L Milfont,et al.  The Interplay Between Knowledge, Perceived Efficacy, and Concern About Global Warming and Climate Change: A One‐Year Longitudinal Study , 2012, Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis.

[46]  A. Leiserowitz,et al.  Information Seeking About Global Climate Change Among Adolescents: The Role of Risk Perceptions, Efficacy Beliefs, and Parental Influences , 2012, Atlantic journal of communication.

[47]  N. Stroud.  Polarization and Partisan Selective Exposure , 2010 .

[48]  K. Witte.  Putting the fear back into fear appeals: The extended parallel process model , 1992 .

[49]  Sven Engesser,et al.  Beyond false balance: How interpretive journalism shapes media coverage of climate change , 2017 .

[50]  Stephan Lewandowsky,et al.  Rational Irrationality: Modeling Climate Change Belief Polarization Using Bayesian Networks , 2016, Top. Cogn. Sci..

[51]  UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Patterns of controversy and consensus in German, Canadian, and US online news on climate change , 2022 .