How you talk about climate change matters: A communication network perspective on epistemic skepticism and belief strength |
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| Institution: | 1. School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Drummond Street, Edinburgh EH8 9XP, UK;2. Land Economy and Environment Research Group, SRUC, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JG, UK;3. Department of Ecosystem Modelling, University of Göttingen, Büsgenweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany;4. Department of Ecological Modelling, UFZ-Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Permoserstr. 15, Leipzig, Germany;5. Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence, Chemistry Department, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK;6. Department of Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University, Paradisgatan 2, Lund, Sweden;1. University of Victoria, School of Environmental Studies, David Turpin Building B243, PO Box 1700 STN CSC, Victoria, BC, V8W 2Y2, Canada;2. University of Victoria, Department of Psychology, Canada;3. Department of Psychology, Langara, Vancouver, Canada;1. Global Economic Dynamics and the Biosphere, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Box 50005, 104 05 Stockholm, Sweden;2. Stockholm Resilience Center, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden;1. Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, United States;2. FrameWorks Institute, Washington, DC, United States;3. New Knowledge Organization Ltd, New York, NY, United States;1. Tinbergen Institute and Department of Economics, University of Amsterdam, Valckenierstraat 65-67, 1018 XE Amsterdam, The Netherlands;2. Nuffield College and Department of Economics, University of Oxford, Manor Road Building, Manor Road, Oxford OX1 3UQ, UK;3. Centre for Macroeconomics, UK |
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| Abstract: | A population’s attitudes toward climate change can strongly influence governmental policies as well as community and individual climate-related behaviors. These attitudes have been explained with a variety of factors, including cultural worldviews, environmental attitudes, political ideology, knowledge of climate change, severe weather exposure, and sociodemographic characteristics. These studies typically assume an individual forms attitudes on the basis of preexisting values or beliefs and do not account for dynamic social interaction as a source of influence. This study introduces a network perspective that accounts for the social embeddedness of individuals, using network variables to predict climate attitudes, including homophily, network strength, attitude diversity, centrality, network size, and network valence. An exploratory factor analysis identified two distinct attitudinal dimensions: climate change epistemic skepticism and belief strength. Using egocentric data from a nationally representative survey collected in 2011, this study found that network variables were significant in predicting both climate attitude dimensions; hierarchical regression analyses accounting for other known predictors found two different predictive models for epistemic skepticism and belief strength. Homophily, network strength, attitude diversity, and network valence predicted epistemic skepticism (R2change = 4.8%), while centrality and network strength predicted belief strength (R2change = 8.9%). The analyses also found support for cultural factors as significant predictors of climate attitudes, particularly Christianity and cultural worldviews. The results of this study suggest that interpersonal influence through communication networks is a promising avenue for continued research, and should be included in studies of climate attitude formation and change. |
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| Keywords: | Climate change Skepticism Social networks Communication Public attitudes Interpersonal influence |
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