Abstract
Understanding how people’s worldviews and individual personality differences affect their thinking about anthropogenic climate change is critical to communication efforts regarding this issue. This study surveyed University of Georgia students to investigate the role that need for cognitive closure plays in level of climate change worry. The relationship between these two was found to involve suppression—a subset of mediation—by the social dimension of political conservatism. Political conservatism was also found to play a mediating role in the relationship between need for cognitive closure and support for governmental and personal climate solutions. However, social conservatism played this mediator role in women, and functioned as a suppressor for men. These findings help inform audience segmentation and creation of climate-related messages based on audience worldview and personality.
Highlights
Despite the vast amount of scientific evidence showing that human activities are causing the Earth’s climate to rapidly change; and that these changes will result in dire consequences in the future, there is substantial doubt and inaction regarding this issue in the United States [1,2] Only about 57% of American adults know that climate change is caused mostly by human activities, and only 49% know that most scientists agree that this is the case [2]
Support for government solutions decreases with higher NCC in women, and conservatism is a necessary link between these two—without it, the relationship is not significant. These results show that high need for cognitive closure does play a role in climate change worry and solution support, mediated by various dimensions of conservatism
While the particular power of social conservatism over economic is consistent with the findings of Panno et al [10], this study found a significant difference between the genders that was not present in the Panno et al [10] study
Summary
Despite the vast amount of scientific evidence showing that human activities are causing the Earth’s climate to rapidly change; and that these changes will result in dire consequences in the future, there is substantial doubt and inaction regarding this issue in the United States [1,2] Only about 57% of American adults know that climate change is caused mostly by human activities, and only 49% know that most scientists agree that this is the case [2]. Enough doubt has been created about these facts, some of it purposefully, that the United States, one of the top emitters of fossil fuels worldwide, is making little to no progress to solve this issue [3]. It is of utmost importance for the future of humanity that. There has been significant political polarization regarding the climate change issue since approximately 2000 [5] Much of this partisan divide is based upon fear of increased regulation in conservatives [5]. This polarization makes messaging difficult, as people immediately side with their political allegiance when they hear the words “climate change”
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