The Experience of Consensus: Video as an Effective Medium to Communicate Scientific Agreement on Climate Change
Abstract
Research on the gateway belief model indicates that communicating the scientific consensus on global warming acts as a “gateway” to other beliefs and support for action. We test whether a video conveying the scientific consensus on global warming is more effective than a text transcript with the same information. Results show that the video was significantly more effective than the transcript in increasing people’s perception of scientific agreement. Structural equation models indicate indirect increases in the beliefs that global warming is happening and is human-caused, and in worry about global warming, which in turn predict increased global warming issue priority.
Get full access to this article
View all access and purchase options for this article.
References
Barron G., Erev I. (2003). Small feedback-based decisions and their limited correspondence to description-based decisions. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 16, 215-233.
Bolsen T., Druckman J. N. (2018). Do partisanship and politicization undermine the impact of a scientific consensus message about climate change? Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 21, 389-402.
Brewer P. R., McKnight J. (2017). “A statistically representative climate change debate”: Satirical Television news, scientific consensus, and public perceptions of global warming. Atlantic Journal of Communication, 25, 166-180.
Collins R. L., Taylor S. E., Wood J. V., Thompson S. C. (1988). The vividness effect: Elusive or illusory? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 24, 1-18.
Cook J. (2019). The consensus on consensus messaging. Retrieved from https://skepticalscience.com/consensus-consensus-messaging.html
Cook J., Lewandowsky S. (2016). Rational irrationality: Modeling climate change belief polarization using Bayesian networks. Topics in Cognitive Science, 8, 160-179.
Cook J., Lewandowsky S., Ecker U. K. (2017). Neutralizing misinformation through inoculation: Exposing misleading argumentation techniques reduces their influence. PLoS One, 12, e0175799.
Cook J., Oreskes N., Doran P. T., Anderegg W. R., Verheggen B., Maibach E. W., . . . Nuccitelli D. (2016). Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming. Environmental Research Letters, 11(4), 04800.
Dixon G. (2016). Applying the gateway belief model to genetically modified food perceptions: New insights and additional questions. Journal of Communication, 66, 888-908.
Flusberg S. J., Matlock T., Thibodeau P. H. (2017). Metaphors for the war (or race) against climate change. Environmental Communication, 11, 769-783.
Goldberg M. H., van der Linden S., Ballew M. T., Rosenthal S. A., Leiserowitz A. (2019). The role of anchoring in judgments about expert consensus. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 49, 192-200.
Goldberg M. H., van der Linden S., Maibach E., Leiserowitz A. (2019). Discussing global warming leads to greater acceptance of climate science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(30), 14804-14805.
Goode M. R., Dahl D. W., Moreau C. P. (2010). The effect of experiential analogies on consumer perceptions and attitudes. Journal of Marketing Research, 47, 274-286.
Guadagno R. E., Rhoads K. V. L., Sagarin B. J. (2011). Figural vividness and persuasion: Capturing the “elusive” vividness effect. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37, 626-638.
Harris A. J., Sildmäe O., Speekenbrink M., Hahn U. (2018). The potential power of experience in communications of expert consensus levels. Journal of Risk Research, 22, 593-609.
Huck S. W., McLean R. A. (1975). Using a repeated measures ANOVA to analyze the data from a pretest-posttest design: A potentially confusing task. Psychological Bulletin, 82, 511-518.
Kerr J. R., Wilson M. S. (2018). Changes in perceived scientific consensus shift beliefs about climate change and GM food safety. PLoS One, 13, e0200295.
Lakoff G., Johnson M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Leiserowitz A., Maibach E., Roser-Renouf C., Rosenthal S., Cutler M., Kotcher J. (2018a). Climate change in the American mind, March 2018. New Haven, CT/Fairfax, VA: Yale University/George Mason University.
Leiserowitz A., Maibach E., Roser-Renouf C., Rosenthal S., Cutler M., Kotcher J. (2018b). Politics and global warming, March 2018. New Haven, CT/Fairfax, VA: Yale University/George Mason University.
Leiserowitz A., Smith N. (2017). Affective imagery, risk perceptions, and climate change communication. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science (pp. 1-29).
Ma Y., Dixon G., Hmielowski J. D. (2019). Psychological reactance from reading basic facts on climate change: The role of prior views and political identification. Environmental Communication, 13, 71-86.
Marx S. M., Weber E. U., Orlove B. S., Leiserowitz A., Krantz D. H., Roncoli C., Philips J. (2007). Communication and mental processes: Experiential and analytic processing of uncertain climate information. Global Environmental Change, 17, 47-58.
Miller D. T., Prentice D. A. (2016). Changing norms to change behavior. Annual Review of Psychology, 67, 339-361.
O’Neill S. J., Boykoff M., Niemeyer S., Day S. A. (2013). On the use of imagery for climate change engagement. Global Environmental Change, 23, 413-421.
O’Neill S., Nicholson-Cole S. (2009). “Fear won’t do it” promoting positive engagement with climate change through visual and iconic representations. Science Communication, 30, 355-379.
Petty R. E., Cacioppo J. T. (1986). The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. In Communication and persuasion (pp. 1-24). New York, NY: Springer.
Prentice D. A., Miller D. T. (1993). Pluralistic ignorance and alcohol use on campus: some consequences of misperceiving the social norm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 243-256.
Schnall S. (2012). Are there basic metaphors? In Metaphorical thought in social life. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Slovic P., Finucane M. L., Peters E., MacGregor D. G. (2004). Risk as analysis and risk as feelings: Some thoughts about affect, reason, risk, and rationality. Risk Analysis, 24, 311-322.
Sopory P., Dillard J. P. (2002). The persuasive effects of metaphor: A meta-analysis. Human Communication Research, 28, 382-419.
StataCorp. (2017). Stata Statistical Software: Release 15 [Computer software]. College Station, TX: Author.
Tankard M. E., Paluck E. L. (2017). The effect of a Supreme Court decision regarding gay marriage on social norms and personal attitudes. Psychological Science, 28, 1334-1344.
Taylor S. E., Thompson S. C. (1982). Stalking the elusive” vividness” effect. Psychological Review, 89, 155-181.
van der Linden S. L., Clarke C. E., Maibach E. W. (2015). Highlighting consensus among medical scientists increases public support for vaccines: Evidence from a randomized experiment. BMC Public Health, 15, 1207.
van der Linden S. L., Leiserowitz A. A., Feinberg G. D., Maibach E. W. (2014). How to communicate the scientific consensus on climate change: plain facts, pie charts or metaphors? Climatic Change, 126, 255-262.
van der Linden S. L., Leiserowitz A. A., Feinberg G. D., Maibach E. W. (2015). The scientific consensus on climate change as a gateway belief: Experimental evidence. PLoS One, 10, e0118489.
van der Linden S., Leiserowitz A., Maibach E. (2018). Scientific agreement can neutralize politicization of facts. Nature Human Behaviour, 2, 2-3.
van der Linden S., Leiserowitz A., Maibach E. (2019). The gateway belief model: A large-scale replication. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 62, 49-58.
van der Linden S., Maibach E., Cook J., Leiserowitz A., Ranney M., Lewandowsky S., . . . Weber E. U. (2017). Culture versus cognition is a false dilemma. Nature Climate Change, 7, 457-458.
van der Linden S., Maibach E., Leiserowitz A. (2015). Improving public engagement with climate change: Five “best practice” insights from psychological science. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10, 758-763.
van der Linden S., Maibach E., Leiserowitz A. (2019). Exposure to scientific consensus does not cause psychological reactance. Environmental Communication. Advance online publication.
Biographies
Matthew H. Goldberg is a postdoctoral associate at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and specializes in persuasion, social influence, and ideology.
Sander van der Linden is an assistant professor of social psychology at the University of Cambridge and specializes in social influence, persuasion, human judgment and decision making, the psychology of risk and communication, and human–environment interactions.
Matthew T. Ballew is a postdoctoral associate at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and specializes in attitudes, emotions, social influence, and environmental communication.
Seth A. Rosenthal is Project Director at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and specializes in survey and experimental methodology.
Abel Gustafson is a postdoctoral associate at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and specializes in the role of emotions, uncertainty, and motivated reasoning in science communication.
Anthony Leiserowitz is Director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and Senior Research Scientist at the Yale University School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and is an expert in climate change opinion and communication.
Cite article
Cite article
Cite article
OR
Download to reference manager
If you have citation software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice
Information, rights and permissions
Information
Published In
Article first published online: September 10, 2019
Issue published: October 2019
Keywords
History
Published online: September 10, 2019
Issue published: October 2019
Authors
Metrics and citations
Metrics
Article usage*
Total views and downloads: 2867
*Article usage tracking started in December 2016
Altmetric
See the impact this article is making through the number of times it’s been read, and the Altmetric Score.
Learn more about the Altmetric Scores
Articles citing this one
Web of Science: 43 view articles Opens in new tab
Crossref: 48
- Preaching to the choir? Heterogeneous responses to environmental image...
- Workflow for designing instructional videos to support place-based geo...
- Do younger generations care more about environmental issues? A compari...
- How Media Reports on COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories Impact Consensus Bel...
- Scientific-Consensus Communication About Contested Science: A Preregis...
- Change in US state-level public opinion about climate change: 2008–202...
- Pursuing a uniform effect: Pathways linking exposure to normatively‐fo...
- Pre-registered replication of the gateway belief model – Results from ...
- Social Media Misinformation About Extreme Weather Events and Climate C...
- A toolkit for understanding and addressing climate scepticism
- The Power of Emotional Appeal in Motivating Behaviors to Mitigate Clim...
- Recycling as a planned behavior: the moderating role of perceived beha...
- Climate Change Consensus Messages May Cause Reactance in Conservatives...
- Communicating the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change: Diverse Audi...
- Effects of Conspiracy Rhetoric on Views About the Consequences of Clim...
- Young Adults’ Reactions and Engagement with Short-form Videos on Sea L...
- Communicating evidence about the environment’s role in obesity and sup...
- Effective Communication About Climate Change and Sea-Level Rise
- Communicating expert consensus increases personal support for COVID‐19...
- OUP accepted manuscript
- Pictures are Worth Many Words: Effectiveness of Visual Communication i...
- The Relationship between Social Norms, Avoidance, Future Orientation, ...
- Secure and sustainable but not as prominent among the ambivalent: Atta...
- When Fairness is Flawed: Effects of False Balance Reporting and Weight...
- The Gateway Belief Model (GBM): A review and research agenda for commu...
- The evolutionary psychology of climate change behaviors: Insights and ...
- The (minimal) persuasive advantage of political video over text
- THE DESTINY OF VISUALIZATIONS IN PUBLIC SCIENCE COMMUNICATION: BETWEEN...
- Testing how different narrative perspectives achieve communication obj...
- Effects of consensus messages and political ideology on climate change...
- Influencing climate change attitudes in the United States: A systemati...
- Evidence-based communication on climate change and health: Testing vid...
- Social Media, Cognitive Reflection, and Conspiracy Beliefs
- Language and climate justice: A research agenda
- Health professional's willingness to advocate for strengthening global...
- Climate Change Disinformation and How to Combat It
- Climate of hope or doom and gloom? Testing the climate change hope vs....
- The Power of Being Transported: Efficacy Beliefs, Risk Perceptions, an...
- Open Questions in Scientific Consensus Messaging Research
- Enhancing Water Literacy through an Innovative Television Series Focus...
- Transformation of the media landscape: Infotainment versus expository ...
- A Research Agenda for Climate Change Communication and Public Opinion:...
- Communicating Evidence about the Causes of Obesity and Support for Obe...
- Leveraging Social Science to Generate Lasting Engagement with Climate ...
- Identifying the most important predictors of support for climate polic...
- Governmental Communication of Climate Change Risk and Efficacy: Moving...
- What Remains in Mind? Effectiveness and Efficiency of Explainers at Co...
Figures and tables
Figures & Media
Tables
View Options
Get access
Access options
If you have access to journal content via a personal subscription, university, library, employer or society, select from the options below:
loading institutional access options
Alternatively, view purchase options below:
Purchase 24 hour online access to view and download content.
Access journal content via a DeepDyve subscription or find out more about this option.
