A study conducted by researchers from the University of Bonn and the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) involving 4,000 US adults found no evidence to support the idea that climate change deniers bend the facts to avoid modifying their environmentally harmful behavior. The surprising results of the study were published in the journal Nature Climate Change, leaving the implications for the fight against global heating to be determined.
Professor Florian Zimmermann, an economist at the University of Bonn and Research Director at IZA, described this thought process as ‘motivated reasoning.’ This form of reasoning allows individuals to justify their behavior, such as frequent holiday travel, by bending the facts to maintain a positive self-image while engaging in harmful behavior.
Previous to this study, there was little scientific evidence to understand the role of motivated reasoning in how people think about climate change. The researchers conducted a series of online experiments using a representative sample of 4,000 US adults, with the central focus being a $20 donation. The surprising results of the study have now closed this knowledge gap.
The participants were randomly allocated to two groups, with the first group having the option to donate the $20 to organizations committed to combating climate change, while the second group could choose to keep the money for themselves. The unexpected findings shed light on the complex relationship between motivated reasoning and attitudes towards climate change.
2024-02-04 10:00:06
Post from phys.org