Dan M. Kahan (Yale University - Law School), Ellen Peters (Ohio State University - Psychology Department; Decision Research; University of Oregon), Maggie Wittlin (Yale University - Law School), Paul Slovic (Decision Research; University of Oregon - Department of Psychology), Lisa Larrimore Ouellette (Yale Law School Information Society Project), Donald Braman (George Washington University - Law School; Cultural Cognition Project), & Gregory N. Mandel (Temple University - James E. Beasley School of Law) have posted The Polarizing Impact of Science Literacy and Numeracy on Perceived Climate Change Risks (Nature Climate Change, Vol. 2, pp. 732-735, 2012) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
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Seeming public apathy over climate change is often attributed to a deficit in comprehension. The public knows too little science, it is claimed, to understand the evidence or avoid being misled. Widespread limits on technical reasoning aggravate the problem by forcing citizens to use unreliable cognitive heuristics to assess risk. A study conducted by the Cultural Cognition Project and published in the Journal Nature Climate Change found no support for this position. Members of the public with the highest degrees of science literacy and technical reasoning capacity were not the most concerned about climate change. Rather, they were the ones among whom cultural polarization was greatest. This result suggests that public divisions over climate change stem not from the public’s incomprehension of science but from a distinctive conflict of interest: between the personal interest individuals have in forming beliefs in line with those held by others with whom they share close ties and the collective one they all share in making use of the best available science to promote common welfare.
