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.
AndereggW. R. L.PrallJ. W.HaroldJ.SchneiderS. H. (2010). Expert credibility in climate change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(27), 12107–12109. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1003187107
2.
BadenC.LechelerS. (2012). Fleeting, fading, or far-reaching? A knowledge-based model of the persistence of framing effects: Persistence of framing effects. Communication Theory, 22(4), 359–382. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2012.01413.x
3.
BayesR.DruckmanJ. N.GoodsA.MoldenD. C. (2020). When and how different motives can drive motivated political reasoning. Political Psychology, 41(5), 1031–1052. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12663
4.
BolsenT.DruckmanJ. N. (2018). Validating conspiracy beliefs and effectively communicating scientific consensus. Weather, Climate, and Society, 10(3), 453–458. https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-17-0096.1
5.
BolsenT.DruckmanJ. N.CookF. L. (2014). The influence of partisan motivated reasoning on public opinion. Political Behavior, 36(2), 235–262. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-013-9238-0
6.
BrewerP. R.McKnightJ. (2017). “A statistically representative climate change debate”: Satirical television news, scientific consensus, and public perceptions of global warming. Atlantic Journal of Communication, 25(3), 166–180. https://doi.org/10.1080/15456870.2017.1324453
7.
CarnahanD.BerganD. E.LeeS. (2020). Do corrective effects last? Results from a longitudinal experiment on beliefs toward immigration in the U.S. Political Behavior, 43, 1227–1246. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-020-09591-9
ChinnS.HartP. (2021b). Effects of consensus messages and political ideology on climate change attitudes: Inconsistent findings and the effect of a pretest. Climatic Change, 167(3), 1–21.
10.
ChongD.DruckmanJ. N. (2007). A theory of framing and opinion formation in competitive elite environments. Journal of Communication, 57(1), 99–118. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2006.00331.x
11.
ChongD.DruckmanJ. N. (2010). Dynamic public opinion: Communication effects over time. American Political Science Review, 104(4), 663–680. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055410000493
ChrystB.MarlonJ.van der LindenS.LeiserowitzA.MaibachE.Roser-RenoufC. (2018). Global warming’s “six Americas short survey”: Audience segmentation of climate change views using a four question instrument. Environmental Communication, 12(8), 1109–1122. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2018.1508047
14.
CookJ.LewandowskyS.EckerU. K. H. (2017). Neutralizing misinformation through inoculation: Exposing misleading argumentation techniques reduces their influence. PLOS ONE, 12(5), e0175799. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0175799
15.
CookJ.NuccitelliD.GreenS. A.RichardsonM.WinklerB.PaintingR.WayR.JacobsP.SkuceA. (2013). Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature. Environmental Research Letters, 8(2), 024024. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024
16.
CookJ.OreskesN.DoranP. T.AndereggW. R. L.VerheggenB.MaibachE. W.CarltonJ. S.LewandowskyS.SkuceA. G.GreenS. A.NuccitelliD.JacobsP.RichardsonM.WinklerB.PaintingR.RiceK. (2016). Consensus on consensus: A synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming. Environmental Research Letters, 11(4), 048002. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002
17.
CoppockA. E. (2016). Positive, small, homogeneous, and durable: Political persuasion in response to information. Columbia University. https://doi.org/10.7916/D8J966CS
18.
CummingG. (2009). Inference by eye: Reading the overlap of independent confidence intervals. Statistics in Medicine, 28(2), 205–220. https://doi.org/10.1002/sim.3471
19.
DeryuginaT.ShurchkovO. (2016). The effect of information provision on public consensus about climate change. PLOS ONE, 11(4), e0151469. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0151469
20.
DingD.MaibachE. W.ZhaoX.Roser-RenoufC.LeiserowitzA. (2011). Support for climate policy and societal action are linked to perceptions about scientific agreement. Nature Climate Change, 1(9), 462–466. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1295
21.
DixonG.HmielowskiJ.MaY. (2017). Improving climate change acceptance among U.S. conservatives through value-based message targeting. Science Communication, 39(4), 520–534. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547017715473
22.
DruckmanJ. N.McGrathM. C. (2019). The evidence for motivated reasoning in climate change preference formation. Nature Climate Change, 9(2), 111–119. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0360-1
23.
EdwardsK.SmithE. E. (1996). A disconfirmation bias in the evaluation of arguments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(1), 5–24.
24.
FeldmanL.MaibachE. W.Roser-RenoufC.LeiserowitzA. (2012). Climate on cable: The nature and impact of global warming coverage on fox news, CNN, and MSNBC. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 17(1), 3–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161211425410
25.
FeldmanL.MyersT. A.HmielowskiJ. D.LeiserowitzA. (2014). The mutual reinforcement of media selectivity and effects: Testing the reinforcing spirals framework in the context of global warming. Journal of Communication, 64(4), 590–611. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12108
26.
GerberA. S.GreenD. P. (2012). Field experiments: Design, analysis, and interpretation. W.W. Norton.
27.
GoldbergM. H.CarmichaelC. L.HardinC. D. (2020). Counter-argument self-efficacy predicts choice of belief-defense strategies. European Journal of Social Psychology, 50(2), 438–447. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2603
GoldbergM. H.GustafsonA.van der LindenS. (2020). Leveraging social science to generate lasting engagement with climate change solutions. One Earth, 3(3), 314–324.
30.
GoldbergM. H.van der LindenS.BallewM. T.RosenthalS. A.GustafsonA.LeiserowitzA. (2019). The experience of consensus: Video as an effective medium to communicate scientific agreement on climate change. Science Communication, 41(5), 659–673. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547019874361
31.
GoldbergM. H.van der LindenS.BallewM. T.RosenthalS. A.LeiserowitzA. (2019). The role of anchoring in judgments about expert consensus. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 49(3), 192–200. https://doi.org/10.1111/jasp.12576
32.
GoldsteinH.HealyM. J. R. (1995). The graphical presentation of a collection of means. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 158(1), 175–177. https://doi.org/10.2307/2983411
33.
GuessA.CoppockA. (2020). Does counter-attitudinal information cause Backlash? Results from three large survey experiments. British Journal of Political Science, 50(4), 1497–1515. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123418000327
34.
GustafsonA.GoldbergM. (2018). Even Americans highly concerned about climate change dramatically underestimate the scientific consensus. Yale University; Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
35.
HarkinsS. G.PettyR. E. (1987). Information utility and the multiple source effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52(2), 260–268.
36.
HarrisA. J. L.SildmäeO.SpeekenbrinkM.HahnU. (2019). The potential power of experience in communications of expert consensus levels. Journal of Risk Research, 22(5), 593–609. https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2018.1440416
37.
HartP. S.NisbetE. C. (2014). Boomerang effects in science communication: How motivated reasoning and identity cues amplify opinion polarization about climate mitigation policies: (578192014-270) [Data set]. American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/e578192014-270
38.
HartW.AlbarracínD.EaglyA. H.BrechanI.LindbergM. J.MerrillL. (2009). Feeling validated versus being correct: A meta-analysis of selective exposure to information. Psychological Bulletin, 135(4), 555–588. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015701
39.
HennesE. P.KimT.RemacheL. J. (2020). A goldilocks critique of the hot cognition perspective on climate change skepticism. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 34, 142–147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2020.03.009
40.
HornseyM. J.HarrisE. A.BainP. G.FieldingK. S. (2016). Meta-analyses of the determinants and outcomes of belief in climate change. Nature Climate Change, 6(6), 622–626. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2943
41.
HuckS. W.McLeanR. A. (1975). Using a repeated measures ANOVA to analyze the data from a pretest-posttest design: A potentially confusing task. Psychological Bulletin, 82(4), 511–518. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0076767
42.
ImundoM. N.RappD. N. (2022). When fairness is flawed: Effects of false balance reporting and weight-of-evidence statements on beliefs and perceptions of climate change. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 11(2), 258–271.
43.
KahanD. M. (2015). Climate-science communication and the measurement problem. Political Psychology, 36(S1), 1–43. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12244
KahanD. M.PetersE.WittlinM.SlovicP.OuelletteL. L.BramanD.MandelG. (2012). The polarizing impact of science literacy and numeracy on perceived climate change risks. Nature Climate Change, 2(10), 732–735. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1547
46.
KerrJ. R.WilsonM. S. (2018). Perceptions of scientific consensus do not predict later beliefs about the reality of climate change: A test of the gateway belief model using cross-lagged panel analysis. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 59, 107–110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2018.08.012
47.
KobayashiK. (2018). The impact of perceived scientific and social consensus on scientific beliefs. Science Communication, 40(1), 63–88. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547017748948
48.
KoehlerD. J. (2016). Can journalistic “false balance” distort public perception of consensus in expert opinion?Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 22(1), 24–38. https://doi.org/10.1037/xap0000073
49.
KundaZ. (1990). The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108(3), 480–498.
50.
LeiserowitzA.MaibachE.RosenthalS.KotcherJ.CarmanJ.NeyensL.MyersT.GoldbergM.CampbellE.LacroixK.MarlonJ. (2022). Climate change in the American mind, April2022. Yale University and George Mason University; Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
51.
LeiserowitzA.MaibachE.Roser-RenoufC.FeinbergG.RosenthalS. (2014). Americans’ actions to limit global warming, November2013. Yale University and George Mason University; Yale Project on Climate Change Communication.
52.
LeiserowitzA.Roser-RenoufC.MarlonJ.MaibachE. (2021). Global warming’s six Americas: A review and recommendations for climate change communication. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 42, 97–103. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2021.04.007
53.
LeiserowitzA.SmithN. (2010). Knowledge of climate change across global warming’s six Americas. Yale University; Yale Project on Climate Change Communication.
54.
LewandowskyS.GignacG. E.VaughanS. (2013). The pivotal role of perceived scientific consensus in acceptance of science. Nature Climate Change, 3(4), 399–404. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1720
55.
MaY.DixonG.HmielowskiJ. D. (2019). Psychological reactance from reading basic facts on climate change: The role of prior views and political identification. Environmental Communication, 13(1), 71–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2018.1548369
56.
MaertensR.AnseelF.van der LindenS. (2020). Combatting climate change misinformation: Evidence for longevity of inoculation and consensus messaging effects. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 70, 101455. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2020.101455
57.
MaibachE. (2012). Knowing our options for setting the record straight, when doing so is particularly important. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 13(3), 105–105. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100612457647
58.
MaibachE. W.LeiserowitzA.Roser-RenoufC.MertzC. K. (2011). Identifying like-minded audiences for global warming public engagement campaigns: An audience segmentation analysis and tool development. PloS One, 6(3), e17571. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100612457647
59.
McCrightA. M.DunlapR. E.XiaoC. (2013). Perceived scientific agreement and support for government action on climate change in the USA. Climatic Change, 119(2), 511–518. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-013-0704-9
MontgomeryJ. M.NyhanB.TorresM. (2018). How conditioning on posttreatment variables can ruin your experiment and what to do about it. American Journal of Political Science, 62(3), 760–775. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12357
62.
MyersT. A.MaibachE.PetersE.LeiserowitzA. (2015). Simple messages help set the record straight about scientific agreement on human-caused climate change: The results of two experiments. PLOS ONE, 10(3), e0120985. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0120985
63.
MyersT. A.NisbetM. C.MaibachE. W.LeiserowitzA. A. (2012). A public health frame arouses hopeful emotions about climate change. Climatic Change, 113(3), 1105–1112. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-012-0513-6
64.
NyhanB. (2021). Why the backfire effect does not explain the durability of political misperceptions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(15), 1–15.
65.
OreskesN. (2004). The scientific consensus on climate change. Science, 306(5702), 1686.
66.
PearsonA. R.SchuldtJ. P.Romero-CanyasR. (2016). Social climate science: A new vista for psychological science. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11(5), 632–650. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616639726
67.
PettyR. E.CacioppoJ. T. (1986). The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. In PettyR. E.CacioppoJ. T. (Eds.), Communication and persuasion: Central and peripheral routes to attitude change (pp. 1–24). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-4964-1_1
68.
RodeJ. B.DentA. L.BenedictC. N.BrosnahanD. B.MartinezR. L.DittoP. H. (2021). Influencing climate change attitudes in the United States: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 76, 101623.
69.
RodeJ. B.IqbalS.ButlerB. J.DittoP. H. (2021). Using a news article to convey climate science consensus information. Science Communication, 43(5), 651–673.
70.
Roser-RenoufC.MaibachE.LeiserowitzA. (2020). Communication for a sustainable climate. In KoniskyD. (Ed.), Handbook of U.S. environmental policy (pp. 342–356). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781788972840.00034
71.
Roser-RenoufC.MaibachE.LeiserowitzA.FeinbergG.RosenthalS.KreslakeJ. (2014). Global warming’s six Americas, October, 2014: Perception of the health consequences of global warming and update on key beliefs. Yale University and George Mason University; Yale Project on Climate Change Communication.
72.
Roser-RenoufC.StenhouseN.Rolfe-ReddingJ.MaibachE.LeiserowitzA. (2015). Engaging diverse audiences with climate change: Message strategies for global warming’s six Americas. In The Routledge handbook of environment and communication (pp. 388–406). Routledge.
73.
Swire-ThompsonB.DeGutisJ.LazerD. (2020). Searching for the backfire effect: Measurement and design considerations. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 9(3), 286–299.
74.
TaberC. S.LodgeM. (2006). Motivated skepticism in the evaluation of political beliefs. American Journal of Political Science, 50(3), 755–769.
75.
TankardM. E.PaluckE. L. (2016). Norm perception as a vehicle for social change. Social Issues and Policy Review, 10(1), 181–211. https://doi.org/10.1111/sipr.12022
76.
TappinB. M.PennycookG.RandD. G. (2020). Thinking clearly about causal inferences of politically motivated reasoning: Why paradigmatic study designs often undermine causal inference. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 34, 81–87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2020.01.003
77.
van der LindenS. (2021). The gateway belief model (GBM): A review and research agenda for communicating the scientific consensus on climate change. Current Opinion in Psychology, 42, 7–12.
78.
van der LindenS.LeiserowitzA. A.FeinbergG. D.MaibachE. W. (2014). How to communicate the scientific consensus on climate change: Plain facts, pie charts or metaphors?Climatic Change, 126(1–2), 255–262. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-014-1190-4
79.
van der LindenS.LeiserowitzA. A.FeinbergG. D.MaibachE. W. (2015). The scientific consensus on climate change as a gateway belief: Experimental evidence. PLOS ONE, 10(2), e0118489. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118489
80.
van der LindenS.LeiserowitzA.MaibachE. (2018a). Scientific agreement can neutralize politicization of facts. Nature Human Behaviour, 2(1), 2–3. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0259-2
81.
van der LindenS.LeiserowitzA.MaibachE. (2018b). Perceptions of scientific consensus predict later beliefs about the reality of climate change using cross-lagged panel analysis: A response to Kerr and Wilson (2018). Journal of Environmental Psychology, 60, 110–111. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2018.10.002
82.
van der LindenS.LeiserowitzA.MaibachE. (2019). The gateway belief model: A large-scale replication. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 62, 49–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2019.01.009
83.
van der LindenS.LeiserowitzA.RosenthalS.MaibachE. (2017). Inoculating the public against misinformation about climate change. Global Challenges, 1(2), 1600008. https://doi.org/10.1002/gch2.201600008
84.
van der LindenS.MaibachE.LeiserowitzA. (2019). Exposure to scientific consensus does not cause psychological reactance. Environmental Communication. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2019.1617763
85.
van StekelenburgA.SchaapG.VelingH.BuijzenM. (2020). Correcting misperceptions: The causal role of motivation in corrective science communication about vaccine and food safety. Science Communication, 42(1), 31–60. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547019898256
86.
WonnebergerA.MeijersM. H. C.SchuckA. R. T. (2020). Shifting public engagement: How media coverage of climate change conferences affects climate change audience segments. Public Understanding of Science, 29(2), 176–193. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662519886474
87.
WoodT.PorterE. (2019). The elusive backfire effect: Mass attitudes’ steadfast factual adherence. Political Behavior, 41(1), 135–163. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-018-9443-y
88.
ZhangB.van der LindenS.MildenbergerM.MarlonJ. R.HoweP. D.LeiserowitzA. (2018). Experimental effects of climate messages vary geographically. Nature Climate Change, 8(5), 370–374. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0122-0
89.
ZhouJ. (2016). Boomerangs versus javelins: How polarization constrains communication on climate change. Environmental Politics, 25(5), 788–811. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2016.1166602
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
