Physical-World Knowledge and Public Views on Climate Change
Climate change is a formidable topic, challenging the research efforts of countless scientists across many different fields. Surveys find surprisingly high levels of confidence among nonscientists, however, regarding their own understanding of climate change. More than threefourths of the respondent...
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ftuninhampshire:oai:scholars.unh.edu:faculty_pubs-1647 2023-05-15T18:22:34+02:00 Physical-World Knowledge and Public Views on Climate Change Hamilton, Lawrence C. Fogg, Linda M 2019-03-27T07:00:00Z application/pdf https://scholars.unh.edu/faculty_pubs/648 https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1647&context=faculty_pubs unknown University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository https://scholars.unh.edu/faculty_pubs/648 https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1647&context=faculty_pubs Faculty Publications text 2019 ftuninhampshire 2023-01-30T21:50:40Z Climate change is a formidable topic, challenging the research efforts of countless scientists across many different fields. Surveys find surprisingly high levels of confidence among nonscientists, however, regarding their own understanding of climate change. More than threefourths of the respondents on recent U.S. surveys claimed to understand either a moderate amount or a great deal about climate change. Follow-up questions testing actual knowledge suggest that self-assessments are high relative to physical-world knowledge. For some people, self-assessments reflect confidence in their political views rather than geographical or science knowledge. This paper replicates and extends previous research using new data: an October 2018 survey that included a four-item test of basic, climate-relevant but belief-neutral geographical or physical knowledge, such as locations of the North and South Pole. Mean knowledge scores are higher among younger, male, and college-educated respondents, and also differ significantly across political groups. Relationships between physical/geographical knowledge and selfassessed understanding of climate change, or between knowledge and agreement with the scientific consensus on climate change, are sometimes positive as expected — but in both cases, these relationships depend on political identity. Text South pole University of New Hampshire: Scholars Repository South Pole |
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Climate change is a formidable topic, challenging the research efforts of countless scientists across many different fields. Surveys find surprisingly high levels of confidence among nonscientists, however, regarding their own understanding of climate change. More than threefourths of the respondents on recent U.S. surveys claimed to understand either a moderate amount or a great deal about climate change. Follow-up questions testing actual knowledge suggest that self-assessments are high relative to physical-world knowledge. For some people, self-assessments reflect confidence in their political views rather than geographical or science knowledge. This paper replicates and extends previous research using new data: an October 2018 survey that included a four-item test of basic, climate-relevant but belief-neutral geographical or physical knowledge, such as locations of the North and South Pole. Mean knowledge scores are higher among younger, male, and college-educated respondents, and also differ significantly across political groups. Relationships between physical/geographical knowledge and selfassessed understanding of climate change, or between knowledge and agreement with the scientific consensus on climate change, are sometimes positive as expected — but in both cases, these relationships depend on political identity. |
format |
Text |
author |
Hamilton, Lawrence C. Fogg, Linda M |
spellingShingle |
Hamilton, Lawrence C. Fogg, Linda M Physical-World Knowledge and Public Views on Climate Change |
author_facet |
Hamilton, Lawrence C. Fogg, Linda M |
author_sort |
Hamilton, Lawrence C. |
title |
Physical-World Knowledge and Public Views on Climate Change |
title_short |
Physical-World Knowledge and Public Views on Climate Change |
title_full |
Physical-World Knowledge and Public Views on Climate Change |
title_fullStr |
Physical-World Knowledge and Public Views on Climate Change |
title_full_unstemmed |
Physical-World Knowledge and Public Views on Climate Change |
title_sort |
physical-world knowledge and public views on climate change |
publisher |
University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
https://scholars.unh.edu/faculty_pubs/648 https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1647&context=faculty_pubs |
geographic |
South Pole |
geographic_facet |
South Pole |
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South pole |
genre_facet |
South pole |
op_source |
Faculty Publications |
op_relation |
https://scholars.unh.edu/faculty_pubs/648 https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1647&context=faculty_pubs |
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1766201986159476736 |