Factual or Moral Persuasion in the United States? Evidence from the Papal Encyclical on Climate Change

Abstract

How do elite cues shape public opinion? We assess two ways in which such cues may be influential: by changing citizens’ factual beliefs about the world (the “factual channel”) or by triggering a moral reevaluation (the “moral channel”). We study this issue in the context of the papal encyclical on climate change, in which Pope Francis attempted to persuade Catholics that there is a scientific consensus around climate change and that protecting the environment is a moral and religious obligation. Exploiting panel data from the United States before and after the encyclical, we find that both mechanisms played a role: Catholics who regularly attended church became disproportionately more likely to believe both that global warming was happening and that climate change was a religious issue. The pope's influence on Catholic policy preferences, however, operated only through the factual channel.