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Discussing global warming leads to greater acceptance of climate science.

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Goldberg, Matthew H  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1267-7839
van der Linden, Sander 
Maibach, Edward 
Leiserowitz, Anthony 

Abstract

Climate change is an urgent global issue, with demands for personal, collective, and governmental action. Although a large body of research has investigated the influence of communication on public engagement with climate change, few studies have investigated the role of interpersonal discussion. Here we use panel data with 2 time points to investigate the role of climate conversations in shaping beliefs and feelings about global warming. We find evidence of reciprocal causality. That is, discussing global warming with friends and family leads people to learn influential facts, such as the scientific consensus that human-caused global warming is happening. In turn, stronger perceptions of scientific agreement increase beliefs that climate change is happening and human-caused, as well as worry about climate change. When assessing the reverse causal direction, we find that knowing the scientific consensus further leads to increases in global warming discussion. These findings suggest that climate conversations with friends and family enter people into a proclimate social feedback loop.

Description

Keywords

climate change, climate change communication, discussion, scientific consensus, self-persuasion

Journal Title

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0027-8424
1091-6490

Volume Title

116

Publisher

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences