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Myers TA, Maibach E, Peters E, et al. Simple messages help set the record straight about scientific agreement on human-caused climate change: the results of two experiments. PLoS One. 2015;10(3):e0120985doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0120985.
Myers, T. A., Maibach, E., Peters, E., & Leiserowitz, A. (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
Myers, Teresa A, et al. "Simple messages help set the record straight about scientific agreement on human-caused climate change: the results of two experiments." PloS one vol. 10,3 (2015): e0120985. doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0120985
Myers TA, Maibach E, Peters E, Leiserowitz A. Simple messages help set the record straight about scientific agreement on human-caused climate change: the results of two experiments. PLoS One. 2015 Mar 26;10(3):e0120985. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0120985. eCollection 2015. PMID: 25812121; PMCID: PMC4374663.
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PLoS One. 2015 Mar 26;10(3):e0120985. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0120985. eCollection 2015.

Simple messages help set the record straight about scientific agreement on human-caused climate change: the results of two experiments.

PloS one

Teresa A Myers, Edward Maibach, Ellen Peters, Anthony Leiserowitz

Affiliations

  1. Center for Climate Change Communication, Department of Communication, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, United States of America.
  2. Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America.
  3. Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America.

PMID: 25812121 PMCID: PMC4374663 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0120985

Abstract

Human-caused climate change is happening; nearly all climate scientists are convinced of this basic fact according to surveys of experts and reviews of the peer-reviewed literature. Yet, among the American public, there is widespread misunderstanding of this scientific consensus. In this paper, we report results from two experiments, conducted with national samples of American adults, that tested messages designed to convey the high level of agreement in the climate science community about human-caused climate change. The first experiment tested hypotheses about providing numeric versus non-numeric assertions concerning the level of scientific agreement. We found that numeric statements resulted in higher estimates of the scientific agreement. The second experiment tested the effect of eliciting respondents' estimates of scientific agreement prior to presenting them with a statement about the level of scientific agreement. Participants who estimated the level of agreement prior to being shown the corrective statement gave higher estimates of the scientific consensus than respondents who were not asked to estimate in advance, indicating that incorporating an "estimation and reveal" technique into public communication about scientific consensus may be effective. The interaction of messages with political ideology was also tested, and demonstrated that messages were approximately equally effective among liberals and conservatives. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

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